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BOOKS  ^  CHARACTERS 

FRENCH  &  ENGLISH 


BY   THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

EMINENT   VICTORIANS 
QUEEN.  VICTORIA 


VOLTAIRE 


BOOKS   AND 
CHARACTERS 

FRENCH  &  ENGLISH 
BY 

LYTTON  STRACHEY 


a 


NEW  YORK 
HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 

1922 


COPYRIGHT,    1922,  BY 
HARCOURT,   BRACE  AND  COMPANY,   INC. 


PRINTSD    IN    THB    U.  S.  A.  BY 

TMC    OUINN    a    BODKN    COMPANY 

RAHWAV,    N.    J 


College 
tlbrorv 

-51} 


TO 
JOHN  MAYNARD  KEYNES  . 


i  QORQQvl 


The  following  papers  are  re- 
printed by  kind  permission  of 
the  Editors  of  the  Independent 
Review,  the  New  Quarterly,  the 
Athenceum,  and  the  Edinburgh 
Review. 

The  "  Dialogue  "  is  now  printed 
for  the  first  time,  from  a  manu- 
script, apparently  in  the  hand- 
writing of  Voltaire  and  belonging 
to  his  English  period. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Racine i 

Sir  Thomas  Browne 31 

Shakespeare's  Final  Period     .       .       .       .       .49 

The  Lives  of  the  Poets 71 

Madame  du  Deffand 81 

Voltaire  and  England 113 

A  Dialogue 142 

Voltaire's  Tragedies 145 

Voltaire  and  Frederick  the  Great  .       .       .       .165 

The  Rousseau  Affair 201 

The  Poetry  of  Blake 217 

The  Last  Elizabethan 235 

Henri  Beyle 267 

Lady  Hester  Stanhope 295 

Mr.  Creevey 309 

Index 321 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Voltaire  at  Ferney.     From  a  painting  by  Huber  Frontispiece 

TO   FACE   FAGB 

Madame  du  Deffand.  From  an  engraving  after  a  draw- 
ing by  M.  de  Carmontel         .       .       .       .       .       .83 

Frederick  the  Great.  From  an  engraving  after  a  por- 
trait by  E.  F,  Cunningham.  Reproduced  by  courtesy 
of  Messrs.  Constable  and  Co.,  Ltd 167 

Jean  Jacques   Rousseau.    From  an   engraving  after   a 

portrait  by  Ramsay 203 

Henri  Beyle.     From  a  medallion  by  David  D'Angers. 

Reproduced  by  permission  of  MM.  Hachette.     .       .269 

Lady  Hester   Stanhope.    From  a   coloured  lithograph, 

1845 297 


RACINE 


RACINE 

When  Ingres  painted  his  vast  "  Apotheosis  of  Homer,"  he 
represented,  grouped  round  the  central  throne,  all  the  great 
poets  of  the  ancient  and  modern  worlds,  with  a  single  ex- 
ception— Shakespeare.  After  some  persuasion,  he  relented 
so  far  as  to  introduce  into  his  picture  a  part  of  that  offensive 
personage;  and  English  visitors  at  the  Louvre  can  now  see, 
to  their  disgust  or  their  amusement,  the  truncated  image  of 
rather  less  than  half  of  the  author  of  King  Lear  just  appear- 
ing at  the  extreme  edge  of  the  enormous  canvas.  French 
taste,  let  us  hope,  has  changed  since  the  days  of  Ingres; 
Shakespeare  would  doubtless  now  be  advanced — though  per- 
haps chiefly  from  a  sense  of  duty — to  the  very  steps  of 
the  central  throne.  But  if  an  English  painter  were  to  choose 
a  similar  subject,  how  would  he  treat  the  master  who  stands 
acknowledged  as  the  most  characteristic  representative  of 
the  literature  of  France?  Would  Racine  find  a  place  in  the 
picture  at  all?  Or,  if  he  did,  would  more  of  him  be  visible 
than  the  last  curl  of  his  full-bottomed  wig,  whisking  away 
into  the  outer  darkness? 

There  is  something  inexplicable  about  the  intensity  of 
national  tastes  and  the  violence  of  national  differences.  If, 
as  in  the  good  old  days,  I  could  boldly  believe  a  Frenchman 
to  be  an  inferior  creature,  while  he,  as  simply,  wrote  me 
down  a  savage,  there  would  be  an  easy  end  of  the  matter. 
But  alas!  nous  avons  changi  tout  cela.    Now  we  are  each 

3 


4  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

of  us  obliged  to  recognise  that  the  other  has  a  full  share 
of  intelhgence,  ability,  and  taste;  that  the  accident  of  our 
having  been  born  on  different  sides  of  the  Channel  is  no 
ground  for  supposing  either  that  I  am  a  brute  or  that  he 
is  a  ninny.  But,  in  that  case,  how  does  it  happen  that 
while  on  one  side  of  that  "  span  of  waters  "  Racine  is  de- 
spised and  Shakespeare  is  worshipped,  on  the  other,  Shake- 
speare is  tolerated  and  Racine  is  adored?  The  perplexing 
question  was  recently  emphasised  and  illustrated  in  a  sin- 
gular way.  Mr.  John  Bailey,  in  a  volume  of  essays  entitled 
The  Claims  of  French  Poetry,  discussed  the  qualities 
of  Racine  at  some  length,  placed  him,  not  without  con- 
tumely, among  the  second  rank  of  writers,  and  drew  the 
conclusion  that,  though  indeed  the  merits  of  French  poetry 
are  many  and  great,  it  is  not  among  the  pages  of  Racine 
that  they  are  to  be  found.  Within  a  few  months  of  the 
appearance  of  Mr.  Bailey's  book,  the  distinguished  French 
writer  and  brilliant  critic,  M.  Lemaitre,  published  a  series 
of  lectures  on  Racine,  in  which  the  highest  note  of  un- 
qualified panegyric  sounded  uninterruptedly  from  begin- 
ning to  end.  The  contrast  is  remarkable,  and  the  conflict- 
ing criticisms  seem  to  represent,  on  the  whole,  the  views 
of  the  cultivated  classes  in  the  two  countries.  And  it  is 
worthy  of  note  that  neither  of  these  critics  pays  any  heed, 
either  explicitly  or  by  implication,  to  the  opinions  of  the 
other.  They  are  totally  at  variance,  but  they  argue  along 
lines  so  different  and  so  remote  that  they  never  come  into 
collision.  Mr.  Bailey,  with  the  utmost  sang-froid,  sweeps 
on  one  side  the  whole  of  the  literary  tradition  of  France. 
It  is  as  if  a  French  critic  were  to  assert  that  Shakespeare, 


RACINE  5 

the  Elizabethans,  and  the  romantic  poets  of  the  nineteenth 
century  were  all  negligible,  and  that  England's  really  valu- 
able contribution  to  the  poetry  of  the  world  was  to  be 
found  among  the  writings  of  Dryden  and  Pope.  M. 
Lemaitre,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  sublimely  unconscious 
that  any  such  views  as  Mr.  Bailey's  could  possibly  exist. 
Nothing  shows  more  clearly  Racine's  supreme  dominion 
over  his  countrymen  than  the  fact  that  M.  Lemaitre  never 
questions  it  for  a  moment,  and  tacitly  assumes  on  every 
page  of  his  book  that  his  only  duty  is  to  illustrate  and 
amplify  a  greatness  already  recognised  by  all.  Indeed,  after 
reading  M.  Lemaitre's  book,  one  begins  to  understand  more 
clearly  why  it  is  that  English  critics  find  it  difficult  to 
appreciate  to  the  full  the  literature  of  France.  It  is  no 
paradox  to  say  that  that  country  is  as  insular  as  our  own. 
When  we  find  so  eminent  a  critic  as  M.  Lemaitre  observing 
that  Racine  "  a  vraiment  '  achieve '  et  porte  k  son  point 
supreme  de  perfection  la  tragedie,  cette  etonnante  forme 
d'art,  et  qui  est  bien  de  chez  nous:  car  on  la  trouve  peu 
chez  les  Anglais,"  is  it  surprising  that  we  should  hastily 
jump  to  the  conclusion  that  the  canons  and  the  principles 
of  a  criticism  of  this  kind  will  not  repay,  and  perhaps  do 
not  deserve,  any  careful  consideration?  Certainly  they  are 
not  calculated  to  spare  the  susceptibilities  of  Englishmen. 
And,  after  all,  this  is  only  natural;  a  French  critic  addresses 
a  French  audience;  like  a  Rabbi  in  a  synagogue,  he  has 
no  need  to  argue  and  no  wish  to  convert.  Perhaps,  too, 
whether  he  willed  or  no,  he  could  do  very  little  to  the 
purpose;  for  the  difficulties  which  beset  an  Englishman  in 
his  endeavours  to  appreciate  a  writer  such  as  Racine  are 


6  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

precisely  of  the  kind  which  a  Frenchman  is  least  able  either 
to  dispel  or  even  to  understand.  The  object  of  this  essay 
is,  first,  to  face  these  difficulties  with  the  aid  of  Mr.  Bailey's 
paper,  which  sums  up  in  an  able  and  interesting  way  the 
average  English  view  of  the  matter;  and,  in  the  second 
place,  to  communicate  to  the  English  reader  a  sense  of  the 
true  significance  and  the  immense  value  of  Racine's  work. 
Whether  the  attempt  succeed  or  fail,  some  important  general 
questions  of  literary  doctrine  will  have  been  discussed;  and, 
in  addition,  at  least  an  effort  will  have  been  made  to  vin- 
dicate a  great  reputation.  For,  to  a  lover  of  Racine,  the 
fact  that  English  critics  of  Mr.  Bailey's  calibre  can  write 
of  him  as  they  do,  brings  a  feeling  not  only  of  entire  dis- 
agreement, but  of  almost  personal  distress.  Strange  as  it 
may  seem  to  those  who  have  been  accustomed  to  think  of 
that  great  artist  merely  as  a  type  of  the  frigid  pomposity 
of  an  antiquated  age,  his  music,  to  ears  that  are  attuned 
to  hear  it,  comes  fraught  with  a  poignancy  of  loveliness 
whose  peculiar  quality  is  shared  by  no  other  poetry  in  the 
world.  To  have  grown  familiar  with  the  voice  of  Racine, 
to  have  realised  once  and  for  all  its  intensity,  its  beauty, 
and  its  depth,  is  to  have  learnt  a  new  happiness,  to  have  dis- 
covered something  exquisite  and  splendid,  to  have  enlarged 
the  glorious  boundaries  of  art.  For  such  benefits  as  these 
who  would  not  be  grateful?  Who  would  not  seek  to  make 
them  known  to  others,  that  they  too  may  enjoy,  and  render 
thanks? 

M.  Lemaitre,  starting  out,  like  a  native  of  the  moun- 
tains, from  a  point  which  can  only  be  reached  by  English 
explorers  after  a  long  journey  and  a  severe  climb,  devotes 


RACINE  7 

by  far  the  greater  part  of  liis  book  to  a  series  of  brilliant 
psychological  studies  of  Racine's  characters.  He  leaves  on 
one  side  almost  altogether  the  questions  connected  both  with 
Racine's  dramatic  construction,  and  with  his  style;  and 
these  are  the  very  questions  by  which  English  readers  are 
most  perplexed,  and  which  they  are  most  anxious  to  discuss. 
His  style  in  particular — using  the  word  in  its  widest  sense — 
forms  the  subject  of  the  principal  part  of  Mr.  Bailey's 
essay;  it  is  upon  this  count  that  the  real  force  of  Mr.  Bailey's 
impeachment  depends;  and,  indeed,  it  is  obvious  that  no 
poet  can  be  admired  or  understood  by  those  who  quarrel 
with  the  whole  fabric  of  his  writing  and  condemn  the  very 
principles  of  his  art.  Before,  however,  discussing  this,  the 
true  crux  of  the  question,  it  may  be  well  to  consider  briefly 
another  matter  which  deserves  attention,  because  the  English 
reader  is  apt  to  find  in  it  a  stumbling-block  at  the  very 
outset  of  his  inquiry.  Coming  to  Racine  with  Shakespeare 
and  the  rest  of  the  Elizabethans  warm  in  his  memory,  it  is 
only  to  be  expected  that  he  should  be  struck  with  a  chilling 
sense  of  emptiness  and  unreality.  After  the  colour,  the  mov- 
ing multiplicity,  the  imaginative  luxury  of  our  early  tragedies, 
which  seem  to  have  been  moulded  out  of  the  very  stuff  of  life 
and  to  have  been  built  up  with  the  varied  and  generous  struc- 
ture of  Nature  herself,  the  Frenchman's  dramas,  with  their 
rigid  uniformity  of  setting,  their  endless  duologues,  their  im- 
mense harangues,  their  spectral  confidants,  their  strict  ex- 
clusion of  all  visible  action,  give  one  at  first  the  same  sort  of 
impression  as  a  pretentious  pseudo-classical  summer-house 
appearing  suddenly  at  the  end  of  a  vista,  after  one  has  been 
rambling  through  an  open  forest.    "La  scene  est  h  Buth- 


&  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

rote,  ville  d'Epire,  dans  une  salle  du  palais  de  Pyrrhus  " — 
could  anything  be  more  discouraging  than  such  an  announce- 
ment? Here  is  nothing  for  the  imagination  to  feed  on,  noth- 
ing to  raise  expectation,  no  wondrous  vision  of  "  blasted 
heaths,"  or  the  "seaboard  of  Bohemia";  here  is  only  a 
hypothetical  drawing-room  conjured  out  of  the  void  for  five 
acts,  simply  in  order  that  the  persons  of  the  drama  may  have 
a  place  to  meet  in  and  make  their  speeches.  The  "  three  uni- 
ties "  and  the  rest  of  the  "  rules  "  are  a  burden  which  the 
English  reader  finds  himself  quite  unaccustomed  to  carry; 
he  grows  impatient  of  them;  and,  if  he  is  a  critic,  he  points 
out  the  futility  and  the  unreasonableness  of  those  antiquated 
conventions.  Even  Mr.  Bailey,  who,  curiously  enough,  be- 
lieves that  Racine  "  stumbled,  as  it  were,  half  by  accident 
into  great  advantages "  by  using  them,  speaks  of  the 
"  discredit "  into  which  "  the  once  famous  unities  "  have 
now  fallen,  and .  declares  that  "  the  unities  of  time  and 
place  are  of  no  importance  in  themselves."  So  far  as  critics 
are  concerned  this  may  be  true;  but  critics  are  apt  to  forget 
that  plays  can  exist  somewhere  else  than  in  books,  and  a 
very  small  acquaintance  with  contemporary  drama  is  enough 
to  show  that,  upon  the  stage  at  any  rate,  the  unities,  so  far 
from  having  fallen  into  discredit,  are  now  in  effect  trium- 
phant. For  what  is  the  principle  which  underlies  and  justi- 
fies the  unities  of  time  and  place?  Surely  it  is  not,  as 
Mr.  Bailey  would  have  us  believe,  that  of  the  "  unity  of 
action  or  interest,"  for  it  is  clear  that  every  good  drama, 
whatever  its  plan  of  construction,  must  possess  a  single  dom- 
inating interest,  and  that  it  may  happen — as  in  Antony  and 
Cleopatra,  for  instance — that  the  very  essence  of  this  interest 


RACINE  9 

lies  in  the  accumulation  of  an  immense  variety  of  local  ac- 
tivities and  the  representation  of  long  epochs  of  time.  The 
true  justification  for  the  unities  of  time  and  place  is  to  be 
found  in  the  conception  of  drama  as  the  history  of  a  spiritual 
crisis — the  vision,  thrown  up,  as  it  were,  by  a  bull's-eye  lan- 
tern, of  the  final  catastrophic  phases  of  a  long  series  of 
events.  Very  different  were  the  views  of  the  Elizabethan 
tragedians,  who  aimed  at  representing  not  only  the  catas- 
trophe, but  the  whole  development  of  circumstances  of 
which  it  was  the  effect;  they  traced,  with  elaborate  and 
abounding  detail,  the  rise,  the  growth,  the  decline,  and  the 
ruin  of  great  causes  and  great  persons;  and  the  result  was  a 
series  of  masterpieces  unparalleled  in  the  literature  of  the 
world.  But,  for  good  or  evil,  these  methods  have  become 
obsolete,  and  to-day  our  drama  seems  to  be  developing  along 
totally  different  lines.  It  is  playing  the  part,  more  and  more 
consistently,  of  the  bull's-eye  lantern;  it  is  concerned  with 
the  crisis,  and  nothing  but  the  crisis;  and,  in  proportion  as 
its  field  is  narrowed  and  its  vision  intensified,  the  unities  of 
time  and  place  come  more  and  more  completely  into  play. 
Thus,  from  the  point  of  view  of  form,  it  is  true  to  say  that 
it  has  been  the  drama  of  Racine  rather  than  that  of  Shake- 
speare that  has  survived.  Plays  of  the  type  of  Macbeth  have 
been  superseded  by  plays  of  the  type  of  Britannicus.  Britan- 
nicus,  no  less  than  Macbeth,  is  the  tragedy  of  a  criminal; 
but  it  shows  us,  instead  of  the  gradual  history  of  the  tempta- 
tion and  the  fall,  followed  by  the  fatal  march  of  conse- 
quences, nothing  but  the  precise  psychological  moment  in 
which  the  first  irrevocable  step  is  taken,  and  the  criminal  is 
made.    The  method  of  Macbeth  has  been,  as  it  were,  ab- 


lo  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

sorbed  by  that  of  the  modern  novel;  the  method  of  Britan- 
nicus  still  rules  the  stage.  But  Racine  carried  out  his  ideals 
more  rigorously  and  more  boldly  than  any  of  his  successors. 
He  fixed  the  whole  of  his  attention  upon  the  spiritual  crisis; 
to  him  that  alone  was  of  importance;  and  the  conventional 
classicism  so  disheartening  to  the  English  reader — the  "  uni- 
ties," the  harangues,  the  confidences,  the  absence  of  local 
colour,  and  the  concealment  of  the  action — was  no  more  than 
the  machinery  for  enhancing  the  effect  of  the  inner  tragedy, 
and  for  doing  away  with  every  side  issue  and  every  chance  of 
distraction.  His  dramas  must  be  read  as  one  looks  at  an  airy, 
delicate  statue,  supported  by  artificial  props,  whose  only  im- 
portance lies  in  the  fact  that  without  them  the  statue  itself 
would  break  in  pieces  and  fall  to  the  ground.  Approached 
in  this  light,  even  the  "  salle  du  palais  de  Pyrrhus  "  begins 
to  have  a  meaning.  We  come  to  realise  that,  if  it  is  nothing 
else,  it  is  at  least  the  meeting-ground  of  great  passions,  the 
invisible  framework  for  one  of  those  noble  conflicts  which 
"  make  one  little  room  an  ever5rwhere."  It  will  show  us  no 
views,  no  spectacles,  it  will  give  us  no  sense  of  atmosphere 
or  of  imaginative  romance;  but  it  will  allow  us  to  be  present 
at  the  climax  of  a  tragedy,  to  follow  the  closing  struggle  of 
high  destinies,  and  to  witness  the  final  agony  of  human 
hearts. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Mr.  Bailey,  while  seeming  to  ap- 
prove of  the  classicism  of  Racine's  dramatic  form,  neverthe- 
less finds  fault  with  him  for  his  lack  of  a  quality  with  which, 
by  its  very  nature,  the  classical  form  is  incompatible.  Ra- 
cine's vision,  he  complains,  does  not  "  take  in  the  whole  of 
life  ";  we  do  not  find  in  his  plays  "  the  whole  pell-mell  of 


RACINE  II 

human  existence  ";  and  this  is  true,  because  the  particular 
effects  which  Racine  wished  to  produce  necessarily  involved 
this  limitation  of  the  range  of  his  interests.  His  object  was 
to  depict  the  tragic  interaction  of  a  small  group  of  persons  at 
the  culminating  height  of  its  intensity;  and  it  is  as  irra- 
tional to  complain  of  his  failure  to  introduce  into  his  com- 
positions "  the  whole  pell-mell  of  human  existence  "  as  it 
would  be  to  find  fault  with  a  Mozart  quartet  for  not  con- 
taining the  orchestration  of  Wagner.  But  it  is  a  little  difficult 
to  make  certain  of  the  precise  nature  of  Mr.  Bailey's  criti- 
cism. When  he  speaks  of  Racine's  vision  not  including  "  the 
whole  of  life,"  when  he  declares  that  Racine  cannot  be  reck- 
oned as  one  of  the  "world-poets,"  he  seems  to  be  taking 
somewhat  different  ground  and  discussing  a  more  general 
question.  All  truly  great  poets,  he  asserts,  have  "  a  wide 
view  of  humanity,"  "  a  large  view  of  life  " — a  profound 
sense,  in  short,  of  the  relations  between  man  and  the  uni- 
verse; and,  since  Racine  is  without  this  quality,  his  claim  to 
true  poetic  greatness  must  be  denied.  But,  even  upon  the 
supposition  that  this  view  of  Racine's  philosophical  outlook 
is  the  true  one — and,  in  its  most  important  sense,  I  believe 
that  it  is  not — does  Mr.  Bailey's  conclusion  really  follow? 
Is  it  possible  to  test  a  poet's  greatness  by  the  largeness  of  his 
"  view  of  life  "?  How  wide,  one  would  like  to  know,  was 
Milton's  "  view  of  humanity  "?  And,  though  Wordsworth's 
sense  of  the  position  of  man  in  the  universe  was  far  more 
profound  than  Dante's,  who  will  venture  to  assert  that  he 
was  the  greater  poet?  The  truth  is  that  we  have  struck  here 
upon  a  principle  which  lies  at  the  root,  not  only  of  Mr. 
Bailey's  criticism  of  Racine,  but  of  an  entire  critical  method 


12  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

— the  method  which  attempts  to  define  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  poetry  in  general,  and  then  proceeds  to  ask  of  any 
particular  poem  whether  it  possesses  these  elements,  and  to 
judge  it  accordingly.  How  often  this  method  has  been  em- 
ployed, and  how  often  it  has  proved  disastrously  fallacious! 
For,  after  all,  art  is  not  a  superior  kind  of  chemistry,  amen- 
able to  the  rules  of  scientific  induction.  Its  component  parts 
cannot  be  classified  and  tested,  and  there  is  a  spark  within  it 
which  defies  foreknowledge.  When  Matthew  Arnold  de- 
clared that  the  value  of  a  new  poem  might  be  gauged  by  com- 
paring it  with  the  greatest  passages  in  the  acknowledged 
masterpieces  of  literature,  he  was  falling  into  this  very 
error;  for  who  could  tell  that  the  poem  in  question  was  not 
itself  a  masterpiece,  living  by  the  light  of  an  unknown 
beauty,  and  a  law  unto  itself?  It  is  the  business  of  the  poet 
to  break  rules  and  to  baffle  expectation ;  and  all  the  master- 
pieces in  the  world  cannot  make  a  precedent.  Thus  Mr. 
Bailey's  attempts  to  discover,  by  quotations  from  Shake- 
speare, Sophocles,  and  Goethe,  the  qualities  without  which 
no  poet  can  be  great,  and  his  condemnation  of  Racine  be- 
cause he  is  without  them,  is  a  fallacy  in  criticism.  There  is 
only  one  way  to  judge  a  poet,  as  Wordsworth,  with  that  para- 
doxical sobriety  so  characteristic  of  him,  has  pointed  out — 
and  that  is,  by  loving  him.  But  Mr.  Bailey,  with  regard  to 
Racine  at  any  rate,  has  not  followed  the  advice  of  Words- 
worth. Let  us  look  a  little  more  closely  into  the  nature  of 
his  attack. 

"  L'epithete  rare,"  said  the  De  Goncourts,  "  voil^  la 
marque  de  I'ecrivain."  Mr.  Bailey  quotes  the  sentence  with 
approval,  observing  that  if,  with  Sainte-Beuve,  we  extend 


RACINE  13 

the  phrase  to  "  le  mot  rare  "  we  have  at  once  one  of  those  in- 
valuable touchstones  with  which  we  may  test  the  merit  of 
poetry.  And  doubtless  most  English  readers  would  be  in- 
clined to  agree  with  Mr  Bailey,  for  it  so  happens  that  our 
own  literature  is  one  in  which  rarity  of  style,  pushed  often  to 
the  verge  of  extravagance,  reigns  supreme.  Owing  mainly, 
no  doubt,  to  the  double  origin  of  our  language,  with  its 
strange  and  violent  contrasts  between  the  highly-coloured 
crudity  of  the  Saxon  words  and  the  ambiguous  splendour  of 
the  Latin  vocabulary,  owing  partly,  perhaps,  to  a  national 
taste  for  the  intensely  imaginative,  and  partly,  too,  to  the 
vast  and  penetrating  influence  of  those  grand  masters  of 
bizarrerie — the  Hebrew  Prophets — our  poetry,  our  prose, 
and  our  whole  conception  of  the  art  of  writing  have  fallen 
under  the  dominion  of  the  emphatic,  the  extraordinary,  and 
the  bold.  No  one  in  his  senses  would  regret  this,  for  it  has 
given  our  literature  all  its  most  characteristic  glories,  and,  of 
course,  in  Shakespeare,  with  whom  expression  is  stretched 
to  the  bursting  point,  the  national  style  finds  at  once  its  con- 
summate example  and  its  final  justification.  But  the  result 
is  that  we  have  grown  so  unused  to  other  kinds  of  poetical 
beauty,  that  we  have  now  come  to  believe,  with  Mr.  Bailey, 
that  poetry  apart  from  "  le  mot  rare  "  is  an  impossibility. 
The  beauties  of  restraint,  of  clarity,  of  refinement,  and  of 
precision  we  pass  by  unheeding;  we  can  see  nothing  there 
but  coldness  and  uniformity;  and  we  go  back  with  eagerness 
to  the  fling  and  the  bravado  that  we  love  so  well.  It  is  as  if 
we  had  become  so  accustomed  to  looking  at  boxers,  wrestlers, 
and  gladiators  that  the  sight  of  an  exquisite  minuet  produced 
no  effect  on  us;  the  ordered  dance  strikes  us  as  a  monotony, 


14  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

for  we  are  blind  to  the  subtle  delicacies  of  the  dancers,  which 
are  fraught  with  such  significance  to  the  practised  eye.  But 
let  us  be  patient,  and  let  us  look  again. 

Ariane  ma  soeur,  de  quel  amour  blessee, 

Vous  mourutes  aux  bords  oil  vous  futes  laissee. 

Here,  certainly,  are  no  "  mots  rares  ";  here  is  nothing  to 
catch  the  mind  or  dazzle  the  understanding;  here  is  only 
the  most  ordinary  vocabulary,  plainly  set  forth.  But  is  there 
not  an  enchantment?  Is  there  not  a  vision?  Is  there  not  a 
flow  of  lovely  sound  whose  beauty  grows  upon  the  ear,  and 
dwells  exquisitely  within  the  memory?  Racine's  triumph  is 
precisely  this — that  he  brings  about,  by  what  are  apparently 
the  simplest  means,  effects  which  other  poets  must  strain 
every  nerve  to  produce.  The  narrowness  of  his  vocabulary 
is  in  fact  nothing  but  a  proof  of  his  amazing  art.  In  the  fol- 
lowing passage,  for  instance,  what  a  sense  of  dignity  and 
melancholy  and  power  is  conveyed  by  the  commonest  words  I 

Enfin  j'ouvre  les  yeux,  et  je  me  fais  justice: 
Cast  faire  a  vos  beautes  un  triste  sacrifice 
Que  de  vous  presenter,  madame,  avec  ma  foi, 
Tout  I'age  et  le  malheur  que  je  traine  avec  moi. 
Jusqu'ici  la  fortune  et  la  victoire  memes 
Cachaient  mes  cheveux  blancs  sous  trente  diademes. 
Mais  ce  temps-la  n'est  plus:  je  regnais;  et  je  fuis: 
Mes  ans  se  sent  accrus;  mes  honneurs  sont  detruits. 

Is  that  wonderful  "  trente  "  an  "  epithete  rare  "?  Never, 
surely,  before  or  since,  was  a  simple  numeral  put  to  such  a 
use — to  conjure  up  so  triumphantly  such  mysterious  gran- 
deurs!    But  these  are  subtleties  which  pass  unnoticed  by 


RACINE  15 

those  who  have  been  accustomed  to  the  violent  appeals  of  the 
great  romantic  poets.  As  Sainte-Beuve  says,  in  a  fine  com- 
parison between  Racine  and  Shakespeare,  to  come  to  the  one 
after  the  other  is  like  passing  to  a  portrait  by  Ingres  from  a 
decoration  by  Rubens.  At  first,  "  comme  on  a  I'ceil  rempli  de 
I'eclatante  verite  pittoresque  du  grand  maitre  flamand,  on  ne 
voit  dans  I'artiste  frangais  qu'un  ton  assez  uniforme,  une 
teinte  diffuse  de  pale  et  douce  lumiere.  Mais  qu'on  approche 
de  plus  pres  et  qu'on  observe  avec  soin:  mille  nuances  fines 
vont  eclore  sous  le  regard;  mille  intentions  savantes  vont 
sortir  de  ce  tissu  profond  et  serre;  on  ne  peut  plus  en  de- 
tacher ses  yeux." 

Similarly  when  Mr.  Bailey,  turning  from  the  vocabulary 
to  more  general  questions  of  style,  declares  that  there  is  no 
"  element  of  fine  surprise  "  in  Racine,  no  trace  of  the  "  dar- 
ing metaphors  and  similes  of  Pindar  and  the  Greek  chor- 
uses " — the  reply  is  that  he  would  find  what  he  wants  if  he 
only  knew  where  to  look  for  it.  "  Who  will  forget,"  he 
says,  "  the  comparison  of  the  Atreidae  to  the  eagles  wheeling 
over  their  empty  nest,  of  war  to  the  money-changer  whose 
gold  dust  is  that  of  human  bodies,  of  Helen  to  the  lion's 
whelps?  .  .  .  Everyone  knows  these.  Who  will  match  them 
among  the  formal  elegances  of  Racine?  "  And  it  is  true  that 
when  Racine  wished  to  create  a  great  effect  he  did  not  adopt 
the  romantic  method;  he  did  not  chase  his  ideas  through  the 
four  quarters  of  the  universe  to  catch  them  at  last  upon  the 
verge  of  the  inane;  and  anyone  who  hopes  to  come  upon 
"  fine  surprises  "of  this  kind  in  his  pages  will  be  disap- 
pointed. His  daring  is  of  a  different  kind;  it  is  not  the  dar- 
ing of  adventure  but  of  intensity;  his  fine  surprises  are  seized 


i6  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

out  of  the  very  heart  of  his  subject,  and  seized  in  a  single 
stroke.  Thus  many  of  his  most  astonishing  phrases  burn  with 
an  inward  concentration  of  energy,  which,  difficult  at  first  to 
realise  to  the  full,  comes  in  the  end  to  impress  itself  inefface- 
ably  upon  the  mind. 

C'etait  pendant  I'horreur  d'une  profonde  nuit. 

The  sentence  is  like  a  cavern  whose  mouth  a  careless  trav- 
eller might  pass  by,  but  which  opens  out,  to  the  true  explorer, 
into  vista  after  vista  of  strange  recesses  rich  with  inexhaust- 
ible gold.  But,  sometimes,  the  phrase,  compact  as  dyna- 
mite, explodes  upon  one  with  an  immediate  and  terrific 
force — 

C'est  Venus  toute  entiere  a  sa  proie  attachee! 

A  few  "  formal  elegances  "  of  this  kind  are  surely  worth 
having. 

But  what  is  it  that  makes  the  English  reader  fail  to  recog- 
nise the  beauty  and  the  power  of  such  passages  as  these? 
Besides  Racine's  lack  of  extravagance  and  bravura,  besides 
his  dislike  of  exaggerated  emphasis  and  far-fetched  or  fan- 
tastic imagery,  there  is  another  characteristic  of  his  style  to 
which  we  are  perhaps  even  more  antipathetic — its  suppres- 
sion of  detail.  The  great  majority  of  poets — and  especially 
of  Enghsh  poets — produce  their  most  potent  effects  by  the 
accumulation  of  details — details  which  in  themselves  fas- 
cinate us  either  by  their  beauty  or  their  curiosity  or  their 
supreme  appropriateness.  But  with  details  Racine  will  have 
nothing  to  do;  he  builds  up  his  poetry  out  of  words  which 
are  not  only  absolutely  simple  but  extremely  general,  so 


RACINE  17 

that  our  minds,  failing  to  find  in  it  the  peculiar  delights  to 
which  we  have  been  accustomed,  fall  into  the  error  of  reject- 
ing it  altogether  as  devoid  of  significance.  And  the  error  is 
a  grave  one,  for  in  truth  nothing  is  more  marvellous  than  the 
magic  with  which  Racine  can  conjure  up  out  of  a  few  ex- 
pressions of  the  vaguest  import  a  sense  of  complete  and  inti- 
mate reality.  When  Shakespeare  wishes  to  describe  a  silent 
night  he  does  so  with  a  single  stroke  of  detail — "  not  a 
mouse  stirring  "!  And  Virgil  adds  touch  upon  touch  of  ex- 
quisite minutiae: 

Cum  tacet  omnis  ager,  pecudes,  pictaeque  volucres, 
Quaeque  lacus  late  liquidos,  quaeque  aspera  dumis 
Rura  tenent,  etc. 

Racine's  way  is  different,  but  is  it  less  masterly? 

Mais  tout  dort,  et  I'arm^e,  et  les  vents,  et  Neptune. 

What  a  flat  and  feeble  set  of  expressions!  is  the  English- 
man's first  thought — with  the  conventional  "  Neptune,"  and 
the  vague  "  armee,"  and  the  commonplace  "  vents."  And  he 
forgets  to  notice  the  total  impression  which  these  words  pro- 
duce— the  atmosphere  of  darkness  and  emptiness  and  vast- 
ness  and  ominous  hush. 

It  is  particularly  in  regard  to  Racine's  treatment  of  nature 
that  this  generalised  style  creates  misunderstandings.  "  Is 
he  so  much  as  aware,"  exclaims  Mr.  Bailey,  "  that  the  sun 
rises  and  sets  in  a  glory  of  colour,  that  the  wind  plays  de- 
liciously  on  human  cheeks,  that  the  human  ear  will  never 
have  enough  of  the  music  of  the  sea?  He  might  have  writ- 
ten every  page  of  his  work  without  so  much  as  looking  out 


i8  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

of  the  window  of  his  study."  The  accusation  gains  support 
.from  the  fact  that  Racine  rarely  describes  the  processes  of 
nature  by  means  of  pictorial  detail;  that,  we  know,  was  not 
his  plan.  But  he  is  constantly,  with  his  subtle  art,  suggest- 
ing them.  In  this  line,  for  instance,  he  calls  up,  without  a 
word  of  definite  description,  the  vision  of  a  sudden  and  bril- 
liant sunrise: 

Deja  le  jour  plus  grand  nous  frappe  et  nous  eclaire. 

And  how  varied  and  beautiful  are  his  impressions  of  the  sea! 
He  can  give  us  the  desolation  of  a  calm: 

La  rame  inutile 
Fatigua  vainement  una  mar  immobile; 

or  the  agitated  movement  of  a  great  fleet  of  galleys: 
Voyez  tout  THellespont  blanchissant  sous  nos  rames; 

or  he  can  fill  his  verses  with  the  disorder  and  the  fury  of  a 
storm: 

Quoi !  pour  noyer  las  Grecs  at  laurs  milla  vaissaaux, 
Mar,  tu  n'ouvriras  pas  das  abymas  nouveaux! 
Quoi!  lorsque  las  chassant  du  port  qui  las  recele, 
L'Aulida  aura  vomi  laur  flotta  criminalle. 
Las  vants,  las  mamas  vants,  si  longtemps  accuses, 
Ne  te  couvriront  pas  de  ses  vaissaaux  brisesi 

And  then,  in  a  single  line,  he  can  evoke  the  radiant  spectacle 
of  a  triumphant  flotilla  riding  the  dancing  waves: 

Prats  a  vous  recavoir  mas  vaissaaux  vous  attendant; 
Et  du  piad  de  Pautal  vous  y  pouvaz  montar, 
Souveraine  des  mars  qui  vous  doivent  porter. 


RACINE  19 

The  art  of  subtle  suggestion  could  hardly  go  further  than  in 
this  line,  where  the  alliterating  v's,  the  mute  e's,  and  the 
placing  of  the  long  syllables  combine  so  wonderfully  to  pro- 
duce the  required  effect. 

But  it  is  not  only  suggestions  of  nature  that  readers  like 
Mr.  Bailey  are  unable  to  find  in  Racine — they  miss  in  him  no 
less  suggestions  of  the  mysterious  and  the  infinite.  No  doubt 
this  is  partly  due  to  our  English  habit  of  associating  these 
qualities  with  expressions  which  are  complex  and  unfamiliar. 
When  we  come  across  the  mysterious  accent  of  fatality  and 
remote  terror  in  a  single  perfectly  simple  phrase — 

La  fille  de  Minos  et  de  Pasiphae 

we  are  apt  not  to  hear  that  it  is  there.  But  there  is  another 
reason — the  craving,  which  has  seized  upon  our  poetry  and 
our  criticism  ever  since  the  triumph  of  Wordsworth  and 
Coleridge  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  for  meta- 
physical stimulants.  It  would  be  easy  to  prolong  the  dis- 
cussion of  this  matter  far  beyond  the  boundaries  of  "  sub- 
lunary debate,"  but  it  is  sufficient  to  point  out  that  Mr. 
Bailey's  criticism  of  Racine  affords  an  excellent  example  of 
the  fatal  effects  of  this  obsession.  His  pages  are  full  of  ref- 
erences to  "  infinity  "  and  "  the  unseen  "  and  "  eternity  " 
and  "  a  mystery  brooding  over  a  mystery  "  and  "  the  key  to 
the  secret  life  ";  and  it  is  only  natural  that  he  should  find 
in  these  watchwords  one  of  those  tests  of  poetic  greatness  of 
which  he  is  so  fond.  The  fallaciousness  of  such  views  as 
these  becomes  obvious  when,  we  remember  the  plain  fact 
that  there  is  not  a  trace  of  this  kind  of  mystery  or  of  these 
"feelings  after  the  key  to  the  secret  of  life,"  in  Paradise 


20  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Lost,  and  that  Paradise  Lost  is  one  of  the  greatest  poems  in 
the  world.  But  Milton  is  sacrosanct  in  England;  no  theory, 
however  mistaken,  can  shake  that  stupendous  name,  and  the 
damage  which  may  be  wrought  by  a  vicious  system  of  criti- 
cism only  becomes  evident  in  its  treatment  of  writers  like 
Racinej  whom  it  can  attack  with  impunity  and  apparent  suc- 
cess. There  is  no  "  mystery  "  in  Racine — that  is  to  say, 
there  are  no  metaphysical  speculations  in  him,  no  sugges- 
tions of  the  transcendental,  no  hints  as  to  the  ultimate  nature 
of  reality  and  the  constitution  of  the  world;  and  so  away 
with  him,  a  creature  of  mere  rhetoric  and  ingenuities,  to  the 
outer  limbo!  But  if,  instead  of  asking  what  a  writer  is  with- 
out, we  try  to  discover  simply  what  he  is,  will  not  our  re- 
sults be  more  worthy  of  our  trouble?  And  in  fact,  if  we 
once  put  out  of  our  heads  our  longings  for  the  mystery  of 
metaphysical  suggestion,  the  more  we  examine  Racine,  the 
more  clearly  we  shall  discern  in  him  another  kind  of  mys- 
tery, whose  presence  may  eventually  console  us  for  the  loss 
of  the  first — the  mystery  of  the  mind  of  man.  This  indeed 
is  the  framework  of  his  poetry,  and  to  speak  of  it  adequately 
would  demand  a  wider  scope  than  that  of  an  essay;  for  how 
much  might  be  written  of  that  strange  and  moving  back- 
ground, dark  with  the  profundity  of  passion  and  glowing 
with  the  beauty  of  the  sublime,  wherefrom  the  great  per- 
sonages of  his  tragedies — Hermione  and  Mithridate,  Roxane 
and  Agrippine,  Athalie  and  Phedre — seem  to  emerge  for  a 
moment  towards  us,  whereon  they  breathe  and  suffer,  and 
among  whose  depths  they  vanish  for  ever  from  our  sight! 
Look  where  we  will  we  shall  find  among  his  pages  the  traces 
of  an  inward  mystery  and  the  obscure  infinities  of  the  heart. 


RACINE  ai 

Nous  avons  su  toujours  nous  aimer  et  nous  taire. 

The  line  is  a  summary  of  the  romance  and  the  anguish  of 
two  lives.    That  is  all  affection ;  and  this  all  desire — 

J'aimais  jusqu'i  ses  pleurs  que  je  faisais  couler. 

Or  let  us  listen  to  the  voice  of  Ph^dre,  when  she  learns  that 
Hippolyte  and  Aricie  love  one  another: 

Les  a-t-on  vus  souvent  se  parler,  se  chercher? 
Dans  le  fond  des  forets  alloient-ils  se  cacher? 
Helas!  ils  se  voyaient  avec  pleine  licence; 
Le  ciel  de  leurs  soupirs  approuvait  I'innocence; 
lis  suivaient  sans  remords  leur  penchant  amoureux; 
Tous  les  jours  se  levaient  clairs  et  sereins  pour  eux. 

This  last  line — written,  let  us  remember,  by  a  frigidly  in- 
genious rhetorician,  who  had  never  looked  out  of  his  study- 
window — does  it  not  seem  to  mingle,  in  a  trance  of  absolute 
simplicity,  the  peerless  beauty  of  a  Claude  with  the  misery 
and  ruin  of  a  great  soul? 

It  is,  perhaps,  as  a  psychologist  that  Racine  has  achieved 
his  most  remarkable  triumphs;  and  the  fact  that  so  subtle 
and  penetrating  a  critic  as  M.  Lemaitre  has  chosen  to  devote 
the  greater  part  of  a  volume  to  the  discussion  of  his  charac- 
ters shows  clearly  enough  that  Racine's  portrayal  of  human 
nature  has  lost  nothing  of  its  freshness  and  vitality  with  the 
passage  of  time.  On  the  contrary,  his  admirers  are  now 
tending  more  and  more  to  lay  stress  upon  the  brilliance  of  his 
portraits,  the  combined  vigour  and  intimacy  of  his  painting, 
his  amazing  knowledge  and  his  unerring  fidelity  to  truth. 
M.  Lemaitre,  in  fact,  goes  so  far  as  to  describe  Racine  as  a 
supreme  realist,  while  other  writers  have  found  in  him  the 


22  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

essence  of  the  modern  spirit.  These  are  vague  phrases,  no 
doubt,  but  they  imply  a  very  definite  point  of  view;  and  it  is 
curious  to  compare  with  it  our  English  conception  of  Racine 
as  a  stiff  and  pompous  kind  of  dancing-master,  utterly  out  of 
date  and  infinitely  cold.  And  there  is  a  similar  disagreement 
over  his  style.  Mr.  Bailey  is  never  tired  of  asserting  that 
Racine's  style  is  rhetorical,  artificial,  and  monotonous ;  while 
M.  Lemaitre  speaks  of  it  as  "  nu  et  familier,"  and  Sainte- 
Beuve  says  "  il  rase  la  prose,  mais  avec  des  ailes."  The  ex- 
planation of  these  contradictions  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  the  two  critics  are  considering  different  parts  of  the 
poet's  work.  When  Racine  is  most  himself,  when  he  is  seiz- 
ing upon  a  state  of  mind  and  depicting  it  with  all  its  twist- 
ings  and  vibrations,  he  writes  with  a  directness  which  is  in- 
deed naked,  and  his  sentences,  refined  to  the  utmost  point 
of  significance,  flash  out  like  swords,  stroke  upon  stroke, 
swift,  certain,  irresistible.  This  is  how  Agrippine,  in  the 
fury  of  her  tottering  ambition,  bursts  out  to  Burrhus,  the 
tutor  of  her  son: 

Pretendez-vous  longtemps  me  cacher  I'empereur? 
Ne  le  verrai-je  plus  qu'a  litre  d'importune? 
Ai-je  done  eleve  si  haut  voire  fortune 
Pour  mettre  une  barriere  entre  mon  fils  et  moi? 
Ne  I'osez-vous  laisser  un  moment  sur  sa  foi? 
Entre  Seneque  et  vous  disputez-vous  la  gloire 
A  qui  m'effacera  plus  tot  de  sa  memoir e? 
Vous  I'ai-je  confie  pour  en  faire  un  ingrat 
Pour  etre,  sous  son  nom,  les  maitres  de  I'etat? 
Certes,  plus  je  mMite,  et  moins  je  me  figure 
Que  vous  m'osiez  compter  pour  votre  creature; 
Vous,  dont  j'ai  pu  laisser  vieillir  I'ambition 
Dans  les  honneurs  obscurs  de  quelque  legion; 


RACINE  23 

Et  moi,  qui  sur  le  trone  ai  suivi  mes  ancetres, 
Moi,  fille,  femme,  soeur,  et  mere  de  vos  maitres! 

When  we  come  upon  a  passage  like  this  we  know,  so  to 
speak,  that  the  hunt  is  up  and  the  whole  field  tearing  after 
the  quarry.  But  Racine,  on  other  occasions,  has  another 
way  of  writing.  He  can  be  roundabout,  artificial,  and  vague; 
he  can  involve  a  simple  statement  in  a  mist  of  high-sounding 
words  and  elaborate  inversions. 

Jamais  Taimable  soeur  des  cruels  Pallantides 
Trempa-t-elle  aux  complots  de  ses  freres  perfides. 

That  is  Racine's  way  of  saying  that  Aricie  did  not  join  in  her 
brothers'  conspiracy.  He  will  describe  an  incriminating  let- 
ter as  "  De  sa  trahison  ce  gage  trop  sincere."  It  is  obvious 
that  this  kind  of  expression  has  within  it  the  germs  of  the 
"  noble  "  style  of  the  eighteenth  century  tragedians,  one  of 
whom,  finding  himself  obliged  to  mention  a  dog,  got  out  of 
the  difficulty,  by  referring  to — "  De  la  fidelite  le  respectable 
appui."  This  is  the  side  of  Racine's  writing  that  puzzles  and 
disgusts  Mr.  Bailey.  But  there  is  a  meaning  in  it,  after  all. 
Every  art  is  based  upon  a  selection,  and  the  art  of  Racine 
selected  the  things  of  the  spirit  for  the  material  of  its  work. 
The  things  of  sense — ^physical  objects  and  details,  and  all 
the  necessary  but  insignificant  facts  that  go  to  make  up  the 
machinery  of  existence — these  must  be  kept  out  of  the  pic- 
ture at  all  hazards.  To  have  called  a  spade  a  spade  would 
have  ruined  the  whole  effect;  spades  must  never  be  men- 
tioned, or,  at  the  worst,  they  must  be  dimly  referred  to  as 
agricultural  implements,  so  that  the  entire  attention  may  be 
fixed  upon  the  central  and  dominating  features  of  the  com- 


24  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

position — the  spiritual  states  of  the  characters — which,  laid 
bare  with  uncompromising  force  and  supreme  precision,  may 
thus  indelibly  imprint  themselves  upon  the  mind.  To  con- 
demn Racine  on  the  score  of  his  ambiguities  and  his  pom- 
posities is  to  complain  of  the  hastily  dashed-in  column  and 
curtain  in  the  background  of  a  portrait,  and  not  to  mention 
the  face.  Sometimes  indeed  his  art  seems  to  rise  superior  to 
its  own  conditions,  endowing  even  the  dross  and  refuse  of 
what  it  works  in  with  a  wonderful  significance.  Thus  when 
the  Sultana,  Roxane,  discovers  her  lover's  treachery,  her 
mind  flies  immediately  to  thoughts  of  revenge  and  death, 
and  she  exclaims — 

Ah!  je  respire  enfin,  et  ma  joie  est  extreme 
Que  le  traitre  une  fois  se  soit  trahi  lui-meme. 
Libre  des  soins  cruels  oil  j'allais  m'engager, 
Ma  tranquille  fureur  n'a  plus  qu'a  se  venger. 
Qu'il  meure.  Vengeons-nous.  Courez.  Qu'on  le  saisisse! 
Que  la  main  des  muets  s'arme  pour  son  supplice; 
Qu'ils  viennent  preparer  ces  noeuds  infortunes 
Par  qui  de  ses  pareils  les  jours  sont  termines. 

To  have  called  a  bowstring  a  bowstring  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion; and  Racine,  with  triumphant  art,  has  managed  to  in- 
troduce the  periphrasis  in  such  a  way  that  it  exactly  expresses 
the  state  of  mind  of  the  Sultana.  She  begins  with  revenge 
and  rage,  until  she  reaches  the  extremity  of  virulent  resolu- 
tion; and  then  her  mind  begins  to  waver,  and  she  finally  or- 
ders the  execution  of  the  man  she  loves,  in  a  contorted  agony 
of  speech. 

But,  as  a  rule,  Racine's  characters  speak  out  most  clearly 
when  they  are  most  moved,  so  that  their  words,  at  the  height 


RACINE  25 

of  passion,  have  an  intensity  of  directness  unknown  in  actual 
life.  In  such  moments,  the  phrases  that  leap  to  their  lips 
quiver  and  glow  with  the  compressed  significance  of  char- 
acter and  situation;  the  "  Qui  te  I'a  dit?  "  of  Hermione,  the 
"  Sortez  "  of  Roxane,  the  "  Je  vais  a  Rome  "  of  Mithridate, 
the  "  Dieu  des  Juifs,  tu  I'emportes!  "  of  Athalie — who  can 
forget  these  things,  these  wondrous  microcosms  of  tragedy? 
Very  different  is  the  Shakespearean  method.  There,  as 
passion  rises,  expression  becomes  more  and  more  poetical 
and  vague.  Image  flows  into  image,  thought  into  thought, 
until  at  last  the  state  of  mind  is  revealed,  inform  and  molten, 
driving  darkly  through  a  vast  storm  of  words.  Such  revela- 
tions, no  doubt,  come  closer  to  reality  than  the  poignant  epi- 
grams of  Racine.  In  life,  men's  minds  are  not  sharpened, 
they  are  diffused,  by  emotion ;  and  the  utterance  which  best 
represents  them  is  fluctuating  and  agglomerated  rather  than 
compact  and  defined.  But  Racine's  aim  was  less  to  reflect 
the  actual  current  of  the  human  spirit  than  to  seize  upon  its 
inmost  being  and  to  give  expression  to  that.  One  might  be 
tempted  to  say  that  his  art  represents  the  sublimed  essence 
of  reality,  save  that,  after  all,  reality  has  no  degrees.  Who 
can  affirm  that  the  wild  ambiguities  of  our  hearts  and  the 
gross  impediments  of  our  physical  existence  are  less  real 
than  the  most  pointed  of  our  feelings  and  "  thoughts  beyond 
the  reaches  of  our  souls  "? 

It  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  rank  Racine  among  the 
idealists.  The  world  of  his  creation  is  not  a  copy  of  our 
own;  it  is  a  heightened  and  rarefied  extension  of  it;  moving, 
in  triumph  and  in  beauty,  through  "  an  ampler  ether,  a 
diviner  air."    It  is  a  world  where  the  hesitations  and  the 


26  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

pettinesses  and  the  squalors  of  this  earth  have  been  fired 
out;  a  world  where  ugliness  is  a  forgotten  name,  and  lust  it- 
self has  grown  ethereal;  where  anguish  has  become  a  grace 
and  death  a  glory,  and  love  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all. 
It  is,  too,  the  world  of  a  poet,  so  that  we  reach  it,  not  through 
melody  nor  through  vision,  but  through  the  poet's  sweet 
articulation — through  verse.  Upon  English  ears  the  rh)mied 
couplets  of  Racine  sound  strangely;  and  how  many  besides 
Mr.  Bailey  have  dubbed  his  alexandrines  "monotonous"! 
But  to  his  lovers,  to  those  who  have  found  their  way  into  the 
secret  places  of  his  art,  his  lines  are  impregnated  with  a 
peculiar  beauty,  and  the  last  perfection  of  style.  Over  them, 
the  most  insignificant  of  his  verses  can  throw  a  deep  en- 
chantment, like  the  faintest  wavings  of  a  magician's  wand. 
"  A-t-on  vu  de  ma  part  le  roi  de  Comagene?  " — How  is  it 
that  words  of  such  slight  import  should  hold  such  thrilling 
music?  Oh!  they  are  Racine's  words.  And,  as  to  his 
rhymes,  they  seem  perhaps,  to  the  true  worshipper,  the  final 
crown  of  his  art.  Mr.  Bailey  tells  us  that  the  couplet  is  only 
fit  for  satire.  Has  he  forgotten  La ww.?  And  he  asks,  "  How 
is  it  that  we  read  Pope's  Satires,  and  Dryden's,  and  John- 
son's with  enthusiasm  still,  while  we  never  touch  Irene,  and 
rarely  the  Conquest  of  Granada?  "  Perhaps  the  answer  is 
that  if  we  cannot  get  rid  of  our  a  priori  theories,  even  the 
fiery  art  of  Dryden's  drama  may  remain  dead  to  us,  and 
that,  if  we  touched  Irene  even  once,  we  should  find  it  was  in 
blank  verse.  But  Dryden  himself  has  spoken  memorably 
upon  rhyme.  Discussing  the  imputed  unnaturalness  of  the 
rhymed  "  repartee  "  he  says:  "  Suppose  we  acknowledge  it: 
how  comes  this  confederacy  to  be  more  displeasing  to  you 


RACINE  27 

than  in  a  dance  which  is  well  contrived?  You  see  there  the 
united  design  of  many  persons  to  make  up  one  figure;  .  .  . 
the  confederacy  is  plain  amongst  them,  for  chance  could 
never  produce  anything  so  beautiful;  and  yet  there  is  noth- 
ing in  it  that  shocks  your  sight.  .  .  .  'Tis  an  art  which  ap- 
pears; but  it  appears  only  like  the  shadowings  of  painture, 
which,  being  to  cause  the  rounding  of  it,  cannot  be  absent; 
but  while  that  is  considered,  they  are  lost:  so  while  we  at- 
tend to  the  other  beauties  of  the  matter,  the  care  and  labour 
of  the  rhyme  is  carried  from  us,  or  at  least  drowned  in  its 
own  sweetness,  as  bees  are  sometimes  buried  in  their  honey." 
In  this  exquisite  passage  Dryden  seems  to  have  come  near, 
though  not  quite  to  have  hit,  the  central  argument  for  rhyme 
— its  power  of  creating  a  beautiful  atmosphere,  in  which 
what  is  expressed  may  be  caught  away  from  the  associations 
of  common  life  and  harmoniously  enshrined.  For  Racine, 
with  his  prepossessions  of  sublimity  and  perfection,  some 
such  barrier  between  his  universe  and  reality  was  involved 
in  the  very  nature  of  his  art.  His  rhyme  is  like  the  still  clear 
water  of  a  lake,  through  which  we  can  see,  mysteriously 
separated  from  us  and  changed  and  beautified,  the  forms  of 
his  imagination,  "  quivering  within  the  wave's  intenser  day." 
And  truly  not  seldom  are  they  "  so  sweet,  the  sense  faints 
picturing  them"! 

Oui,  prince,  je  languis,  je  brule  pour  Thesee  .  .  . 
II  avail  voire  port,  vos  yeux,  votre  langage, 
Cette  noble  pudeur  colorait  son  visage, 
Lorsque  de  notre  Crete  il  traversa  les  flots, 
Digne  sujet  des  voeux  des  filles  de  Minos, 
Que  faisiez-vous  alors?     Pourquoi,  sans  Hippolyte, 
Des  heros  de  la  Grece  assembla-t-il  I'elite? 


28  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Pourquoi,  trop  jeune  encor,  ne  putes-vous  alors 
Entrer  dans  le  vaisseau  qui  le  mit  sur  nos  bords? 
Par  vous  aurait  peri  le  monstre  de  la  Crete, 
Malgre  tous  les  detours  de  sa  vaste  retraite: 
Pour  en  developper  I'embarras  incertain 
Ma  soeur  du  fil  fatal  eut  arme  votre  main. 
Mais  non:  dans  ce  dessein  je  I'aurais  devancee; 
L'amour  m'en  eut  d'abord  inspire  la  pensee; 
Cast  moi;  prince,  c'est  moi  dont  I'utile  secours 
Vous  edt  du  labyrinthe  enseigne  les  detours. 
Que  de  soins  m'eut  coutes  cette  tete  char  mantel 

It  is  difficult  to  "  place  "  Racine  among  the  poets.  He  has 
affinities  with  many;  but  likenesses  to  few.  To  balance  him 
rigorously  against  any  other — to  ask  whether  he  is  better  or 
worse  than  Shelley  or  than  Virgil — is  to  attempt  impossi- 
bilities; but  there  is  one  fact  which  is  too  often  forgotten  in 
comparing  his  work  with  that  of  other  poets — with  Virgil's 
for  instance — Racine  wrote  for  the  stage.  Virgil's  poetry  is 
intended  to  be  read,  Racine's  to  be  declaimed;  and  it  is  only 
in  the  theatre  that  one  can  experience  to  the  full  the  potency 
of  his  art.  In  a  sense  we  can  know  him  in  our  library,  just 
as  we  can  hear  the  music  of  Mozart  with  silent  eyes.  But, 
when  the  strings  begin,  when  the  whole  volume  of  that  divine 
harmony  engulfs  us,  how  differently  then  we  understand  and 
feel!  And  so,  at  the  theatre,  before  one  of  those  high 
tragedies,  whose  interpretation  has  taxed  to  the  utmost  ten 
generations  of  the  greatest  actresses  of  France,  we  realise, 
with  the  shock  of  a  new  emotion,  what  we  had  but  half-felt 
before.  To  hear  the  words  of  Phedre  spoken  by  the  mouth 
of  Bernhardt,  to  watch,  in  the  culminating  horror  of  crime 
and  of  remorse,  of  jealousy,  of  rage,  of  desire,  and  of  despair, 


RACINE  29 

all  the  dark  forces  of  destiny  crowd  down  upon  that  great 
spirit,  when  the  heavens  and  the  earth  reject  her,  and  Hell 
opens,  and  the  terrific  urn  of  Minos  thunders  and  crashes  to 
the  ground — that  indeed  is  to  come  close  to  immortality,  to 
plunge  shuddering  through  infinite  abysses,  and  to  look,  if 
only  for  a  moment,  upon  eternal  light. 

1908. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 

The  life  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  does  not  afford  much  scope 
for  the  biographer.  Everyone  knows  that  Browne  was  a 
physician  who  lived  at  Norwich  in  the  seventeenth  century; 
and,  so  far  as  regards  what  one  must  call,  for  want  of  a  bet- 
ter term,  his  "  life,"  that  is  a  sufficient  summary  of  all  there 
is  to  know.  It  is  obvious  that,  with  such  scanty  and  unex- 
citing materials,  no  biographer  can  say  very  much  about 
what  Sir  Thomas  Browne  did;  it  is  quite  easy,  however,  to 
expatiate  about  what  he  wrote.  He  dug  deeply  into  so  many 
subjects,  he  touched  lightly  upon  so  many  more,  that  his 
works  offer  innumerable  openings  for  those  half -conversa- 
tional digressions  and  excursions  of  which  perhaps  the  pleas- 
antest  kind  of  criticism  is  composed. 

Mr.  Gosse,  in  his  volume  on  Sir  Thomas  Browne  in  the 
"  English  Men  of  Letters  Series,"  has  evidently  taken  this 
view  of  his  subject.  He  has  not  attempted  to  treat  it  with 
any  great  profundity  or  elaboration;  he  has  simply  gone 
"  about  it  and  about."  The  result  is  a  book  so  full  of  enter- 
tainment, of  discrimination,  of  quiet  humour,  and  of  liter- 
ary tact,  that  no  reader  could  have  the  heart  to  bring  up 
against  it  the  obvious — though  surely  irrelevant — truth,  that 
the  general  impression  which  it  leaves  upon  the  mind  is  in 
the  nature  of  a  composite  presentment,  in  which  the  features 
of  Sir  Thomas  have  become  somehow  indissolubly  blended 

33 


34  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

with  those  of  his  biographer.  It  would  be  rash,  indeed,  to 
attempt  to  improve  upon  Mr.  Gosse's  example;  after  his 
luminous  and  suggestive  chapters  on  Browne's  life  at  Nor- 
wich, on  the  Vulgar  Errors,  and  on  the  self-revelations  in  the 
Religio  Medici,  there  seems  to  be  no  room  for  further  com- 
ment. One  can  only  admire  in  silence,  and  hand  on  the 
volume  to  one's  neighbour. 

There  is,  however,  one  side  of  Browne's  work  upon  which 
it  may  be  worth  while  to  dwell  at  somewhat  greater  length. 
Mr.  Gosse,  who  has  so  much  to  say  on  such  a  variety  of 
topics,  has  unfortunately  limited  to  a  very  small  number  of 
pages  his  considerations  upon  what  is,  after  all,  the  most  im- 
portant thing  about  the  author  of  Urn  Burial  and  The  Gar- 
den of  Cyrus — his  style;  Mr.  Gosse  himself  confesses  that 
it  is  chiefly  as  a  master  of  literary  form  that  Browne  de- 
serves to  be  remembered.  Why  then  does  he  tell  us  so  little 
about  his  literary  form,  and  so  much  about  his  family,  and 
his  religion,  and  his  scientific  opinions,  and  his  porridge,  and 
who  fished  up  the  murex? 

Nor  is  it  only  owing  to  its  inadequacy  that  Mr.  Gosse's 
treatment  of  Browne  as  an  artist  in  language  is  the  least  sat- 
isfactory part  of  his  book:  for  it  is  difficult  not  to  think  that 
upon  this  crucial  point  Mr.  Gosse  has  for  once  been  deserted 
by  his  sympathy  and  his  acumen.  In  spite  of  what  appears 
to  be  a  genuine  delight  in  Browne's  most  splendid  and  char- 
acteristic passages,  Mr.  Gosse  cannot  help  protesting  some- 
what acrimoniously  against  that  very  method  of  writing 
whose  effects  he  is  so  ready  to  admire.  In  practice,  he  ap- 
proves; in  theory,  he  condemns.  He  ranks  the  Hydriotaphia 
among  the  gems  of  English  literature;  and  the  prose  style  of 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  35 

which  it  is  the  most  consummate  expression  he  denounces  as 
fundamentally  wrong.  The  contradiction  is  obvious;  but 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  though  Browne  has,  as  it  were, 
extorted  a  personal  homage,  Mr.  Gosse's  real  sympathies  lie 
on  the  other  side.  His  remarks  upon  Browne's  effect  upon 
eighteenth-century  prose*  show  clearly  enough  the  true  bent 
of  his  opinions;  and  they  show,  too,  how  completely  mis- 
leading a  preconceived  theory  may  be. 

The  study  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Mr.  Gosse  says,  "  en- 
couraged Johnson,  and  with  him  a  whole  school  of  rhetorical 
writers  in  the  eighteenth  century,  to  avoid  circumlocution 
by  the  invention  of  superfluous  words,  learned  but  pedantic, 
in  which  darkness  was  concentrated  without  being  dis- 
pelled." Such  is  Mr.  Gosse's  account  of  the  influence  of 
Browne  and  Johnson  upon  the  later  eighteenth-century 
writers  of  prose.  But  to  dismiss  Johnson's  influence  as  some- 
thing altogether  deplorable,  is  surely  to  misunderstand  the 
whole  drift  of  the  great  revolution  which  he  brought  about 
in  English  letters.  The  characteristics  of  the  pre- Johnsonian 
prose  style — the  style  which  Dryden  first  established  and 
Swift  brought  to  perfection — are  obvious  enough.  Its  ad- 
vantages are  those  of  clarity  and  force;  but  its  faults,  which, 
of  course,  are  unimportant  in  the  work  of  a  great  master, 
become  glaring  in  that  of  the  second-rate  practitioner.  The 
prose  of  Shaftesbury,  for  instance,  or  of  Bishop  Butler,  suf- 
fers, in  spite  of  its  clarity  and  vigour,  from  grave  defects. 
It  is  very  flat  and  very  loose;  it  has  no  formal  beauty,  no 
elegance,  no  balance,  no  trace  of  the  deliberation  of  art. 
Johnson,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  determined  to  remedy  these 
evils  by  giving  a  new  mould  to  the  texture  of  English  prose; 


36  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

and  he  went  back  for  a  model  to  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  Now, 
as  Mr.  Gosse  himself  observes,  Browne  stands  out  in  a  re- 
markable way  from  among  the  great  mass  of  his  con- 
temporaries and  predecessors,  by  virtue  of  his  highly  devel- 
oped artistic  consciousness.  He  was,  says  Mr.  Gosse,  "  never 
carried  away.  His  effects  are  closely  studied,  they  are  the 
result  of  forethought  and  anxious  contrivance  ";  and  no 
one  can  doubt  the  truth  or  the  significance  of  this  dictum 
who  compares,  let  us  say,  the  last  paragraphs  of  The  Garden 
of  Cyrus  with  any  page  in  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy. 
The  peculiarities  of  Browne's  style — the  studied  pomp  of  its 
latinisms,  its  wealth  of  allusion,  its  tendency  towards  sonor- 
ous antithesis — culminated  in  his  last,  though  not  his  best, 
work,  the  Christian  Morals,  which  almost  reads  like  an  elab- 
orate and  magnificent  parody  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs.  With 
the  Christian  Morals  to  guide  him,  Dr.  Johnson  set  about 
the  transformation  of  the  prose  of  his  time.  He  decorated, 
he  pruned,  he  balanced;  he  hung  garlands,  he  draped  robes; 
and  he  ended  by  converting  the  Doric  order  of  Swift  into  the 
Corinthian  order  of  Gibbon.  Is  it  quite  just  to  describe  this 
process  as  one  by  which  "  a  whole  school  of  rhetorical  writ- 
ers "  was  encouraged  "  to  avoid  circumlocution  "  by  the  in- 
vention "  of  superfluous  words,"  when  it  was  this  very 
process  that  gave  us  the  peculiar  savour  of  polished  ease 
which  characterises  nearly  all  the  important  prose  of  the  last 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century — that  of  Johnson  himself,  of 
Hume,  of  Re3molds,  of  Horace  Walpole — which  can  be 
traced  even  in  Burke,  and  which  fills  the  pages  of  Gibbon? 
It  is,  indeed,  a  curious  reflection,  but  one  which  is  amply 
justified  by  the  facts,  that  the  Decline  and  Fall  could  not 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  37 

have  been  precisely  what  it  is,  had  Sir  Thomas  Browne  never 
written  the  Christian  Morals. 

That  Johnson  and  his  disciples  had  no  inkling  of  the  inner 
spirit  of  the  writer  to  whose  outward  form  they  owed  so 
much,  has  been  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Gosse,  who  adds  that 
Browne's  "  genuine  merits  were  rediscovered  and  asserted 
by  Coleridge  and  Lamb."  But  we  have  already  observed 
that  Mr.  Gosse's  own  assertion  of  these  merits  lies  a  little 
open  to  question.  His  view  seems  to  be,  in  fact,  the  precise 
antithesis  of  Dr.  Johnson's;  he  swallows  the  spirit  of 
Browne's  writing,  and  strains  at  the  form.  Browne,  he  says, 
was  "  seduced  by  a  certain  obscure  romance  in  the  termin- 
ology of  late  Latin  writers,"  he  used  "  adjectives  of  classical 
extraction,  which  are  neither  necessary  nor  natural,"  he  for- 
got that  it  is  better  for  a  writer  "  to  consult  women  and 
people  who  have  not  studied,  than  those  who  are  too 
learnedly  oppressed  by  a  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek." 
He  should  not  have  said  "  oneiro-criticism,"  when  he  meant 
the  interpretation  of  dreams,  nor  "  omneity  "  instead  of 
"  oneness  ";  and  he  had  "  no  excuse  for  writing  about  the 
"  pensile  "  gardens  of  Babylon,  when  all  that  is  required  is 
expressed  by  "hanging."  Attacks  of  this  kind — attacks 
upon  the  elaboration  and  classicism  of  Browne's  style — are 
difficult  to  reply  to,  because  they  must  seem,  to  anyone  who 
holds  a  contrary  opinion,  to  betray  such  a  total  lack  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  subject  as  to  make  argument  all  but  im- 
possible. To  the  true  Browne  enthusiast,  indeed,  there  is 
something  almost  shocking  about  the  state  of  mind  which 
would  exchange  "  pensile  "  for  "  hanging,"  and  "  asperous  " 
for  "  rough,"  and  would  do  away  with  "  digladiation  "  and 


38  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

"  quodlibetically  "  altogether.  The  truth  is,  that  there  is 
a  great  gulf  fixed  between  those  who  naturally  dislike  the 
ornate,  and  tliose  who  naturally  love  it.  There  is  no  rem- 
edy; and  to  attempt  to  ignore  this  fact  only  emphasises 
it  the  more.  Anyone  who  is  jarred  by  the  expression 
"  prodigal  blazes "  had  better  immediately  shut  up  Sir 
Thomas  Browne.  The  critic  who  admits  the  jar,  but  con- 
tinues to  appreciate,  must  present,  to  the  true  enthusiast,  a 
spectacle  of  curious  self-contradiction. 

If  once  the  ornate  style  be  allowed  as  a  legitimate  form  of 
art,  no  attack  such  as  Mr.  Gosse  makes  on  Browne's  latin- 
isms  can  possibly  be  valid.  For  it  is  surely  an  error  to  judge 
and  to  condemn  the  latinisms  without  reference  to  the  whole 
style  of  which  they  form  a  necessary  part.  Mr.  Gosse,  it  is 
true,  inclines  to  treat  them  as  if  they  were  a  mere  excrescence 
which  could  be  cut  off  without  difficulty,  and  might  never 
have  existed  if  Browne's  views  upon  the  English  language 
had  been  a  little  different.  Browne,  he  says,  "  had  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  classic  words  were  the  only  legitimate 
ones,  the  only  ones  which  interpreted  with  elegance  the 
thoughts  of  a  sensitive  and  cultivated  man,  and  that  the  rest 
were  barbarous."  We  are  to  suppose,  then,  that  if  he  had 
happened  to  hold  the  opinion  that  Saxon  words  were  the  only 
legitimate  ones,  the  Hydriotaphia  would  have  been  as  free 
from  words  of  classical  derivation  as  the  sermons  of  Latimer. 
A  very  little  reflection  and  inquiry  will  suffice  to  show  how 
completely  mistaken  this  view  really  is.  In  the  first  place, 
the  theory  that  Browne  considered  all  unclassical  words 
"  barbarous  "  and  unfit  to  interpret  his  thoughts,  is  clearly 
untenable,  owing  to  the  obvious  fact  that  his  writings  are 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  39 

full  of  instances  of  the  deliberate  use  of  such  words.  So 
much  is  this  the  case,  that  Pater  declares  that  a  dissertation 
upon  style  might  be  written  to  illustrate  Browne's  use  of  the 
words  "  thin  "  and  "  dark."  A  striking  phrase  from  the 
Christian  Morals  will  suffice  to  show  the  deliberation  with 
which  Browne  sometimes  employed  the  latter  word: — "  the 
areopagy  and  dark  tribunal  of  our  hearts."  If  Browne  had 
thought  the  Saxon  epithet  "  barbarous,"  why  should  he  have 
gone  out  of  his  way  to  use  it,  when  "  mysterious  "  or  "  se- 
cret" would  have  expressed  his  meaning?  The  truth  is  clear 
enough.  Browne  saw  that  "  dark  "  was  the  one  word  which 
would  give,  better  than  any  other,  the  precise  impression  of 
mystery  and  secrecy  which  he  intended  to  produce;  and  so 
he  used  it.  He  did  not  choose  his  words  according  to  rule, 
but  according  to  the  effect  which  he  wished  them  to  have. 
Thus,  when  he  wished  to  suggest  an  extreme  contrast  be- 
tween simplicity  and  pomp,  we  find  him  using  Saxon  words 
in  direct  antithesis  to  classical  ones.  In  the  last  sentence  of 
Urn  Burial,  we  are  told  that  the  true  believer,  when  he  is  to 
be  buried,  is  "as  content  with  six  foot  as  the  Moles  of 
Adrianus."  How  could  Browne  have  produced  the  remark- 
able sense  of  contrast  which  this  short  phrase  conveys,  if 
his  vocabulary  had  been  limited,  in  accordance  with  a  lin- 
guistic theory,  to  words  of  a  single  stock? 

There  is,  of  course,  no  doubt  that  Browne's  vocabulary  is 
extraordinarily  classical.  Why  is  this?  The  reason  is  not 
far  to  seek.  In  his  most  characteristic  moments  he  was 
almost  entirely  occupied  with  thoughts  and  emotions  which 
can,  owing  to  their  very  nature,  only  be  expressed  in  Latinis- 
tic  language.    The  state  of  mind  which  he  wished  to  produce 


40  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

in  his  readers  was  nearly  always  a  complicated  one:  they 
were  to  be  impressed  and  elevated  by  a  multiplicity  of  sug- 
gestions and  a  sense  of  mystery  and  awe.  "  Let  thy 
thoughts,"  he  says  himself,  "  be  of  things  which  have  not 
entered  into  the  hearts  of  beasts:  think  of  things  long  past, 
and  long  to  come:  acquaint  thyself  with  the  choragium  of 
the  stars,  and  consider  the  vast  expanse  beyond  them.  Let 
intellectual  tubes  give  thee  a  glance  of  things  which  visive 
organs  reach  not.  Have  a  glimpse  of  incomprehensibles; 
and  thoughts  of  things,  which  thoughts  but  tenderly  touch." 
Browne  had,  in  fact,  as  Dr.  Johnson  puts  it,  "  uncommon 
sentiments  ";  and  how  was  he  to  express  them  unless  by  a 
language  of  pomp,  of  allusion,  and  of  elaborate  rhythm? 
Not  only  is  the  Saxon  form  of  speech  devoid  of  splendour 
and  suggestiveness;  its  simplicity  is  still  further  emphasised 
by  a  spondaic  rhythm  which  seems  to  produce  (by  some 
mysterious  rhythmic  law)  an  atmosphere  of  ordinary  life, 
where,  though  the  pathetic  may  be  present,  there  is  no  place 
for  the  complex  or  the  remote.  To  understand  how  unsuit- 
able such  conditions  would  be  for  the  highly  subtk  and  rare- 
fied art  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  it  is  only  necessary  to  com- 
pare one  of  his  periods  with  a  typical  passage  of  Saxon  prose. 

Then  they  brought  a  faggot,  kindled  with  fire,  and  laid  the 
same  down  at  Doctor  Ridley's  feet.  To  whom  Master  Latimer 
spake  in  this  manner:  "  Be  of  good  comfort,  Master  Ridley,  and 
play  the  man.  We  shall  this  day  light  such  a  candle,  by  God's 
grace,  in  England,  as  I  trust  shall  never  be  put  out." 

Nothing  could  be  better  adapted  to  the  meaning  and  senti- 
ment  of  this  passage  than  the  limpid,  even  flow  of  its  rhythm. 
But  who  could  conceive  of  such  a  rhythm  being  ever  ap- 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  41 

plicable  to  the  meaning  and  sentiment  of  these  sentences 
from  the  Hydriotaphia? 

To  extend  our  memories  by  monuments,  whose  death  we  daily 
pray  for,  and  whose  duration  we  cannot  hope  without  injury  to 
our  expectations  in  the  advent  of  the  last  day,  were  a  contradic- 
tion to  our  beliefs.  We,  whose  generations  are  ordained  in  this 
setting  part  of  time,  are  providentially  taken  off  from  such  imagi- 
nations; and,  being  necessitated  to  eye  the  remaining  particle  of 
futurity,  are  naturally  constituted  unto  thoughts  of  the  next 
world,  and  cannot  excusably  decline  the  consideration  of  that 
duration,  which  maketh  pyramids  pillars  of  snow,  and  all  that's 
past  a  moment. 

Here  the  long,  rolling,  almost  turgid  clauses,  with  their 
enormous  Latin  substantives,  seem  to  carry  the  reader  for- 
ward through  an  immense  succession  of  ages,  until  at  last, 
with  a  sudden  change  of  the  rhythm,  the  whole  of  recorded 
time  crumbles  and  vanishes  before  his  eyes.  The  entire 
effect  depends  upon  the  employment  of  a  rhythmical  com- 
plexity and  subtlety  which  is  utterly  alien  to  Saxon  prose.  It 
would  be  foolish  to  claim  a  superiority  for  either  of  the  two 
styles;  it  would  be  still  more  foolish  to  suppose  that  the 
effects  of  one  might  be  produced  by  means  of  the  other. 

Wealth  of  rhythmical  elaboration  was  not  the  only  benefit 
which  a  highly  Latinised  vocabulary  conferred  on  Browne. 
Without  it,  he  would  never  have  been  able  to  achieve  those 
splendid  strokes  of  stylistic  bravura,  which  were  evidently 
so  dear  to  his  nature,  and  occur  so  constantly  in  his  finest 
passages.  The  precise  quality  cannot  be  easily  described, 
but  is  impossible  to  mistake;  and  the  pleasure  which  it  pro- 
duces seems  to  be  curiously  analogous  to  that  given  by  a 


42  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

piece  of  magnificent  brushwork  in  a  Rubens  or  a  Velasquez. 
Browne's  "  brushwork  "  is  certainly  unequalled  in  English 
literature,  except  by  the  very  greatest  masters  of  sophisti- 
cated art,  such  as  Pope  and  Shakespeare;  it  is  the  inspira- 
tion of  sheer  technique.  Such  expressions  as:  "  to  subsist 
in  bones  and  be  but  pyramidally  extant " — "  sad  and  sepul- 
chral pitchers  which  have  no  joyful  voices  " — "  predicament 
of  chimaeras  " — "  the  irregularities  of  vain  glory,  and  wild 
enormities  of  ancient  magnanimity  " — are  examples  of  this 
consummate  mastery  of  language,  examples  which,  with  a 
multitude  of  others,  singly  deserve  whole  hours  of  delicious 
gustation,  whole  days  of  absorbed  and  exquisite  worship.  It 
is  pleasant  to  start  out  for  a  long  walk  with  such  a  splendid 
phrase  upon  one's  lips  as:  "  According  to  the  ordainer  of 
order  and  mystical  mathematicks  of  the  City  of  Heaven," 
to  go  for  miles  and  miles  with  the  marvellous  syllables  still 
rich  upon  the  inward  ear,  and  to  return  home  with  them  in 
triumph.  It  is  then  that  one  begins  to  understand  how  mis- 
taken it  was  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  not  to  have  written  in 
simple,  short,  straightforward  Saxon  English. 

One  other  function  performed  by  Browne's  latinisms 
must  be  mentioned,  because  it  is  closely  connected  with  the 
most  essential  and  peculiar  of  the  qualities  which  distinguish 
his  method  of  writing.  Certain  classical  words,  partly  owing 
to  their  allusiveness,  partly  owing  to  their  sound,  possess  a  re- 
markable flavour  which  is  totally  absent  from  those  of  Saxon 
derivation.  Such  a  word,  for  instance,  as  "  pyramidally," 
gives  one  at  once  an  immediate  sense  of  something  mysteri- 
ous, something  extraordinary,  and,  at  the  same  time,  some- 
thing almost  grotesque.   And  this  subtle  blending  of  mystery 


'  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  43 

and  queerness  characterises  not  only  Browne's  choice  of 
words,  but  his  choice  of  feelings  and  of  thoughts.  The  gro- 
tesque side  of  his  art,  indeed,  was  apparently  all  that  was  vis- 
ible to  the  critics  of  a  few  generations  back,  who  admired  him 
simply  and  solely  for  what  they  called  his  "  quaintness  "; 
while  Mr.  Gosse  has  flown  to  the  opposite  extreme,  and  will 
not  allow  Browne  any  sense  of  humour  at  all.  The  confusion 
no  doubt  arises  merely  from  a  difference  in  the  point  of  view. 
Mr.  Gosse,  regarding  Browne's  most  important  and  general 
effects,  rightly  fails  to  detect  anything  funny  in  them.  The 
Early  Victorians,  however,  missed  the  broad  outlines,  and 
were  altogether  taken  up  with  the  obvious  bizarrerie  of  the 
details.  When  they  found  Browne  asserting  that  "  Cato 
seemed  to  dote  upon  Cabbage,"  or  embroidering  an  entire 
paragraph  upon  the  subject  of  "  Pyrrhus  his  Toe,"  they 
could  not  help  smiling;  and  surely  they  were  quite  right. 
Browne,  like  an  impressionist  painter,  produced  his  pictures 
by  means  of  a  multitude  of  details  which,  if  one  looks  at  them 
in  themselves,  are  discordant,  and  extraordinary,  and  even 
absurd. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  strongly-marked  taste 
for  curious  details  was  one  of  the  symptoms  of  the  scientific 
bent  of  his  mind.  For  Browne  was  scientific  just  up  to  the 
point  where  the  examination  of  detail  ends,  and  its  co-ordi- 
nation begins.  He  knew  little  or  nothing  of  general  laws; 
but  his  interest  in  isolated  phenomena  was  intense.  And  the 
more  singular  the  phenomena,  the  more  he  was  attracted. 
He  was  always  ready  to  begin  some  strange  inquiry.  He 
cannot  help  wondering:  "Whether  great-ear'd  persons  have 
short  necks,  long  feet,  and  loose  bellies?  "    "  Marcus  An- 


44  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

toninus  Philosophus,"  he  notes  in  his  common-place  book, 
"  wanted  not  the  advice  of  the  best  physicians;  yet  how 
warrantable  his  practice  was,  to  take  his  repast  in  the  night, 
and  scarce  anything  but  treacle  in  the  day,  may  admit  of 
great  doubt."  To  inquire  thus  is,  perhaps,  to  inquire  too 
curiously;  yet  such  inquiries  are  the  stuff  of  which  great 
scientific  theories  are  made.  Browne,  however,  used  his 
love  of  details  for  another  purpose:  he  co-ordinated  them, 
not  into  a  scientific  theory,  but  into  a  work  of  art.  His 
method  was  one  which,  to  be  successful,  demanded  a  self- 
confidence,  an  imagination,  and  a  technical  power,  possessed 
by  only  the  very  greatest  artists.  Everyone  knows  Pascal's 
overwhelming  sentence: — "  Le  silence  eternel  de  ces  espaces 
infinis  m'effraie."  It  is  overwhelming,  obviously  and  imme- 
diately; it,  so  to  speak,  knocks  one  down.  Browne's  ultimate 
object  was  to  create  some  such  tremendous  effect  as  that,  by 
no  knock-down  blow,  but  by  a  multitude  of  delicate,  subtle, 
and  suggestive  touches,  by  an  elaborate  evocation  of  memo- 
ries and  half -hidden  things,  by  a  mysterious  combination 
of  pompous  images  and  odd  unexpected  trifles  drawn  to- 
gether from  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  the  four  quarters  of 
heaven.  His  success  gives  him  a  place  beside  Webster  and 
Blake,  on  one  of  the  very  highest  peaks  of  Parnassus.  And, 
if  not  the  highest  of  all,  Browne's  peak  is — or  so  at  least  it 
seems  from  the  plains  below — more  difficult  of  access  than 
some  which  are  no  less  exalted.  The  road  skirts  the  preci- 
pice the  whole  way.  If  one  fails  in  the  style  of  Pascal,  one 
is  merely  flat;  if  one  fails  in  the  style  of  Browne,  one  is 
ridiculous.  He  who  plays  with  the  void,  who  dallies  with 
eternity,  who  leaps  from  star  to  star,  is  in  danger  at  every 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  45 

moment  of  being  swept  into  utter  limbo,  and  tossed  forever 
in  the  Paradise  of  Fools. 

Browne  produced  his  greatest  work  late  in  life;  for  there 
is  nothing  in  the  Religio  Medici  which  reaches  the  same 
level  of  excellence  as  the  last  paragraphs  of  The  Garden  of 
Cyrus  and  the  last  chapter  of  Urn  Burial.  A  long  and  calm 
experience  of  life  seems,  indeed,  to  be  the  background  from 
which  his  most  amazing  sentences  start  out  into  being.  His 
strangest  phantasies  are  rich  with  the  spoils  of  the  real  world. 
His  art  matured  with  himself;  and  who  but  the  most  expert 
of  artists  could  have  produced  this  perfect  sentence  in  The 
Garden  of  Cyrus,  so  well-known,  and  yet  so  impossible  not 
to  quote? 

Nor  will  the  sweetest  delight  of  gardens  afford  much  comfort 
in  sleep;  wherein  the  dullness  of  that  sense  shakes  hands  with 
delectable  odours ;  and  though  in  the  bed  of  Cleopatra,  can  hardly 
with  any  delight  raise  up  the  ghost  of  a  rose. 

This  is  Browne  in  his  most  exquisite  mood.  For  his  most 
characteristic,  one  must  go  to  the  concluding  pages  of  Urn 
Burial,  where,  from  the  astonishing  sentence  beginning — 
"  Meanwhile  Epicurus  lies  deep  in  Dante's  hell  " — to  the 
end  of  the  book,  the  very  quintessence  of  his  work  is  to  be 
found.  The  subject — mortality  in  its  most  generalised  as- 
pect— has  brought  out  Browne's  highest  powers;  and  all  the 
resources  of  his  art — elaboration  of  rhythm,  brilliance  of 
phrase,  wealth  and  variety  of  suggestion,  pomp  and  splen- 
dour of  imagination — are  accumulated  in  every  paragraph. 
To  crown  all,  he  has  scattered  through  these  few  pages  a 
multitude  of  proper  names,  most  of  them  gorgeous  in  sound, 
and  each  of  them  carrying  its  own  strange  freight  of  remin- 


46  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

iscences  and  allusions  from  the  unknown  depths  of  the  past. 
As  one  reads,  an  extraordinary  procession  of  persons  seems 
to  pass  before  one's  eyes — Moses,  Archimedes,  Achilles,  Job, 
Hector  and  Charles  the  Fifth,  Cardan  and  Alaric,  Gordianus, 
and  Pilate,  and  Homer,  and  Cambyses,  and  the  Canaanitish 
woman.  Among  them,  one  visionary  figure  flits  with  a  mys- 
terious pre-eminence,  flickering  over  every  page,  like  a 
familiar  and  ghostly  flame.  It  is  Methuselah;  and,  in 
Browne's  scheme,  the  remote,  almost  infinite,  and  almost 
ridiculous  patriarch  is — who  can  doubt? — the  only  possible 
centre  and  s5mibol  of  all  the  rest.  But  it  would  be  vain  to 
dwell  further  upon  this  wonderful  and  famous  chapter,  ex- 
cept to  note  the  extraordinary  sublimity  and  serenity  of  its 
general  tone.  Browne  never  states  in  so  many  words  what 
his  own  feelings  towards  the  universe  actually  are.  He 
speaks  of  everything  but  that;  and  yet,  with  triumphant  art, 
he  manages  to  convey  into  our  minds  an  indelible  impression 
of  the  vast  and  comprehensive  grandeur  of  his  soul. 

It  is  interesting — or  at  least  amusing — to  consider  what 
are  the  most  appropriate  places  in  which  different  authors 
should  be  read.  Pope  is  doubtless  at  his  best  in  the  midst  of 
a  formal  garden,  Herrick  in  an  orchard,  and  Shelley  in  a 
boat  at  sea.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  demands,  perhaps,  a  more 
exotic  atmosphere.  One  could  read  him  floating  down  the 
Euphrates,  or  past  the  shores  of  Arabia;  and  it  would  be 
pleasant  to  open  the  Vulgar  Errors  in  Constantinople,  or  to 
get  by  heart  a  chapter  of  the  Christian  Morals  between  the 
paws  of  a  Sphinx.  In  England,  the  most  fitting  background 
for  his  strange  ornament  must  surely  be  some  habitation 
consecrated  to  learning,  some  University  which  still  smells 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  47 

of  antiquity  and  has  learnt  the  habit  of  repose.  The  present 
writer,  at  any  rate,  can  bear  witness  to  the  splendid  echo  of 
Browne's  syllables  amid  learned  and  ancient  walls;  for  he 
has  known,  he  believes,  few  happier  moments  than  those  in 
which  he  has  rolled  the  periods  of  the  Hydriotaphia  out  to 
the  darkness  and  the  nightingales  through  the  studious  clois- 
ters of  Trinity. 

But,  after  all,  who  can  doubt  that  it  is  at  Oxford  that 
Browne  himself  would  choose  to  linger?  May  we  not  guess 
that  he  breathed  in  there,  in  his  boyhood,  some  part  of  that 
mysterious  and  charming  spirit  which  pervades  his  words? 
For  one  traces  something  of  him,  often  enough,  in  the  old 
gardens,  and  down  the  hidden  streets;  one  has  heard  his  foot- 
step beside  the  quiet  waters  of  Magdalen;  and  his  smile  still 
hovers  amid  that  strange  company  of  faces  which  guard,  with 
such  a  large  passivity,  the  circumference  of  the  Sheldonian. 

1906. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD 

The  whole  of  the  modern  criticism  of  Shakespeare  has  been 
fundamentally  affected  by  one  important  fact.  The  chrono- 
logical order  of  the  plays,  for  so  long  the  object  of  the 
vaguest  speculation,  of  random  guesses,  or  at  best  of  isolated 
"  points,"  has  been  now  discovered  and  reduced  to  a  co- 
herent law.  It  is  no  longer  possible  to  suppose  that  The 
Tempest  was  written  before  Romeo  and  Juliet;  that  Henry 
VI.  was  produced  in  succession  to  Henry  V.;  or  that  Antony 
and  Cleopatra  followed  close  upon  the  heels  of  Julius  Ccesar. 
Such  theories  were  sent  to  limbo  for  ever,  when  a  study  of 
those  plays  of  whose  date  we  have  external  evidence  revealed 
the  fact  that,  as  Shakespeare's  life  advanced,  a  corresponding 
development  took  place  in  the  metrical  structure  of  his  verse. 
The  establishment  of  metrical  tests,  by  which  the  approxi- 
mate position  and  date  of  any  play  can  be  readily  ascer- 
tained, at  once  followed;  chaos  gave  way  to  order;  and,  for 
the  first  time,  critics  became  able  to  judge,  not  only  of  the 
individual  works,  but  of  the  whole  succession  of  the  works  of 
Shakespeare. 

Upon  this  firm  foundation  modern  writers  have  been  only 
too  eager  to  build.  It  was  apparent  that  the  Plays,  arranged 
in  chronological  order,  showed  something  more  than  a  mere 
development  in  the  technique  of  verse — a  development,  that 
is  to  say,  in  the  general  treatment  of  characters  and  subjects, 
and  in  the  sort  of  feelings  which  those  characters  and  sub- 
Si 


52  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

jects  were  intended  to  arouse;  and  from  this  it  was  easy  to 
draw  conclusions  as  to  the  development  of  the  mind  of  Shake- 
speare itself.  Such  conclusions  have,  in  fact,  been  con- 
stantly drawn.  But  it  must  be  noted  that  they  all  rest  upon 
the  tacit  assumption,  that  the  character  of  any  given  drama 
is,  in  fact,  a  true  index  to  the  state  of  mind  of  the  dramatist 
composing  it.  The  validity  of  this  assumption  has  never 
been  proved;  it  has  never  been  shown,  for  instance,  why  we 
should  suppose  a  writer  of  farces  to  be  habitually  merry;  or 
whether  we  are  really  justified  in  concluding,  from  the  fact 
that  Shakespeare  wrote  nothing  but  tragedies  for  six  years, 
that,  during  that  period,  more  than  at  any  other,  he  was 
deeply  absorbed  in  the  awful  problems  of  human  existence. 
It  is  not,  however,  the  purpose  of  this  essay  to  consider  the 
question  of  what  are  the  relations  between  the  artist  and  his 
art;  for  it  will  assume  the  truth  of  the  generally  accepted 
view,  that  the  character  of  the  one  can  be  inferred  from  that 
of  the  other.  What  it  will  attempt  to  discuss  is  whether, 
upon  this  hypothesis,  the  most  important  part  of  the  ordinary 
doctrine  of  Shakespeare's  mental  development  is  justi- 
fiable. 

What,  then,  is  the  ordinary  doctrine?  Dr.  Furnivall  states 
it  as  follows: 

Shakespeare's  course  is  thus  shown  to  have  run  from  the 
amorousness  and  fun  of  youth,  through  the  strong  patriotism  of 
early  manhood,  to  the  wrestlings  with  the  dark  problems  that 
beset  the  man  of  middle  age,  to  the  gloom  which  weighed  on 
Shakespeare  (as  on  so  many  men)  in  later  life,  when,  though 
outwardly  successful,  the  world  seemed  all  against  him,  and  his 
mind  dwelt  with  sympathy  on  scenes  of  faithlessness  of  friends, 
treachery  of  relations  and  subjects,  ingratitude  of  children,  scorn 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD  53 

of  his  kind;  till  at  last,  in  his  Stratford  home  again,  peace  came 
to  him,  Miranda  and  Perdita  in  their  lovely  freshness  and  charm 
greeted  him,  and  he  was  laid  by  his  quiet  Avon  side. 

And  the  same  writer  goes  on  to  quote  with  approval  Pro- 
fessor Dowden's 

likening  of  Shakespeare  to  a  ship,  beaten  and  storm-tossed,  but 
yet  entering  harbour  with  sails  full-set,  to  anchor  in  peace. 

Such,  in  fact,  is  the  general  opinion  of  modern  writers  upon 
Shakespeare;  after  a  happy  youth  and  a  gloomy  middle  age 
he  reached  at  last — it  is  the  universal  opinion — a  state  of 
quiet  serenity  in  which  he  died.  Professor  Dowden's  book 
on  Shakespeare's  Mind  and  Art  gives  the  most  popular 
expression  to  this  view,  a  view  which  is  also  held  by  Mr.  Ten 
Brink,  by  Mr.  Gollancz,  and,  to  a  great  extent,  by  Dr. 
Brandes.  Professor  Dowden,  indeed,  has  gone  so  far  as  to 
label  this  final  period  with  the  appellation  of  On  the . 
Heights,  in  opposition  to  the  preceding  one,  which,  he  says, 
was  passed  In  the  Depths.  Sir  Sidney  Lee,  too,  seems 
to  find,  in  the  Plays  at  least,  if  not  in  Shakespeare's  mind, 
the  orthodox  succession  of  gaiety,  of  tragedy,  and  of  the 
serenity  of  meditative  romance.  Now  it  is  clear  that  the 
most  important  part  of  this  version  of  Shakespeare's  mental 
history  is  the  end  of  it.  That  he  did  eventually  attain  to  a 
state  of  calm  content,  that  he  did,  in  fact,  die  happy — it  is 
this  that  gives  colour  and  interest  to  the  whole  theory.  For 
some  reason  or  another,  the  end  of  a  man's  life  seems  nat- 
urally to  afford  the  light  by  which  the  rest  of  it  should  be 
read;  last  thoughts  do  appear  in  some  strange  way  to  be 
really  best  and  truest;  and  this  is  particularly  the  case  when 


54  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

they  fit  in  nicely  with  the  rest  of  the  story,  and  are,  perhaps, 
just  what  one  likes  to  think  oneself.  If  it  be  true  that  Shake- 
speare, to  quote  Professor  Dowden,  "  did  at  last  attain  to 
the  serene  self-possession  which  he  had  sought  with  such  per- 
sistent effort ";  that,  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Furnivall,  "  for- 
given and  forgiving,  full  of  the  highest  wisdom  and  peace, 
at  one  with  family  and  friends  and  foes,  in  harmony  with 
Avon's  flow  and  Stratford's  level  meads,  Shakespeare  closed 
his  life  on  earth  " — we  have  obtained  a  piece  of  knowledge 
which  is  both  interesting  and  pleasant.  But  if  it  be  not  true, 
if,  on  the  contrary,  it  can  be  shown  that  something  very  dif- 
ferent was  actually  the  case,  then  will  it  not  follow  that  we 
must  not  only  reverse  our  judgment  as  to  this  particular 
point,  but  also  readjust  our  view  of  the  whole  drift  and  bear- 
ing of  Shakespeare's  "  inner  life  "? 

The  group  of  works  which  has  given  rise  to  this  theory  of 
ultimate  serenity  was  probably  entirely  composed  after 
Shakespeare's  final  retirement  from  London,  and  his  estab- 
lishment at  New  Place.  It  consists  of  three  plays — Cym- 
beline,  The  Winter's  Tale,  and  The  Tempest — and  three 
fragments — the  Shakespearean  parts  of  Pericles,  Henry 
VIII.,  and  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen.  All  these  plays 
and  portions  of  plays  form  a  distinct  group;  they  re- 
semble each  other  in  a  multitude  of  ways,  and  they  differ  in 
a  multitude  of  ways  from  nearly  all  Shakespeare's  previous 
work. 

One  other  complete  play,  however,  and  one  other  frag- 
ment, do  resemble  in  some  degree  these  works  of  the  final 
period;  for,  immediately  preceding  them  in  date,  they  show 
clear  traces  of  the  beginnings  of  the  new  method,  and  they 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD  55 

are  themselves  curiously  different  from  the  plays  they  im- 
mediately succeed — that  great  series  of  tragedies  which  be- 
gan with  Hamlet  in  1601  and  ended  in  1608  with  An- 
tony and  Cleopatra.  In  the  latter  year,  indeed,  Shake- 
speare's entire  method  underwent  an  astonishing  change. 
For  six  years  he  had  been  persistently  occupied  with  a  kind 
of  writing  which  he  had  himself  not  only  invented  but 
brought  to  the  highest  point  of  excellence — the  tragedy  of 
character.  Every  one  of  his  masterpieces  has  for  its  theme 
the  action  of  tragic  situation  upon  character;  and,  without 
those  stupendous  creations  in  character,  his  greatest  trage- 
dies would  obviously  have  lost  the  precise  thing  that  has 
made  them  what  they  are.  Yet,  after  Antony  and  Cleo- 
patra Shakespeare  deliberately  turned  his  back  upon  the 
dramatic  methods  of  all  his  past  career.  There  seems  no  rea- 
son why  he  should  not  have  continued,  year  after  year,  to 
produce  "  Othellos,"  "  Hamlets,"  and  "Macbeths  ";  instead, 
he  turned  over  a  new  leaf,  and  wrote  Coriolanus. 

Coriolanus  is  certainly  a  remarkable,  and  perhaps  an 
intolerable  play:  remarkable,  because  it  shows  the  sud- 
den first  appearance  of  the  Shakespeare  of  the  final  period; 
intolerable,  because  it  is  impossible  to  forget  how  much 
better  it  might  have  been.  The  subject  is  thick  with  sit- 
uations; the  conflicts  of  patriotism  and  pride,  the  effects 
of  sudden  disgrace  following  upon  the  very  height  of  for- 
tune, the  struggles  between  family  affection  on  the  one  hand 
and  every  interest  of  revenge  and  egotism  on  the  other — 
these  would  have  made  a  tragic  and  tremendous  setting  for 
some  character  worthy  to  rank  with  Shakespeare's  best.  But 
it  pleased  him  to  ignore  completely  all  these  opportunities; 


56  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

and,  in  the  play  he  has  given  us,  the  situations,  mutilated 
and  degraded,  serve  merely  as  miserable  props  for  the 
gorgeous  clothing  of  his  rhetoric.  For  rhetoric,  enormously 
magnificent  and  extraordinarily  elaborate,  is  the  beginning 
and  the  middle  and  the  end  of  Coriolanus.  The  hero  is 
not  a  human  being  at  all;  he  is  the  statue  of  a  demi-god  cast 
in  bronze,  which  roars  its  perfect  periods,  to  use  a  phrase  of 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh's,  through  a  melodious  megaphone.  The 
vigour  of  the  presentment  is,  it  is  true,  amazing;  but  it  is  a 
presentment  of  decoration,  not  of  life.  So  far  and  so  quickly 
had  Shakespeare  already  wandered  from  the  subtleties  of 
"  Cleopatra."  The  transformation  is  indeed  astonishing; 
one  wonders,  as  one  beholds  it,  what  will  happen  next. 

At  about  the  same  time,  some  of  the  scenes  in  Timon  of 
Athens  were  in  all  probability  composed:  scenes  which  re- 
semble Coriolanus  in  their  lack  of  characterisation  and 
abundance  of  rhetoric,  but  differ  from  it  in  the  peculiar 
grossness  of  their  tone.  For  sheer  virulence  of  foul-mouthed 
abuse,  some  of  the  speeches  in  Timon  are  probably  unsur- 
passed in  any  literature;  an  outraged  drayman  would  speak 
so,  if  draymen  were  in  the  habit  of  talking  poetry.  From  this 
whirlwind  of  furious  ejaculation,  this  splendid  storm  of  nasti- 
ness,  Shakespeare,  we  are  confidently  told,  passed  in  a  mo- 
ment to  tranquillity  and  joy,  to  blue  skies,  to  young  ladies, 
and  to  general  forgiveness. 

From  1604  to  16 10  [says  Professor  Dowden]  a  show  of  tragic 
figures,  like  the  kings  who  passed  before  Macbeth,  filled  the  vision 
of  Shakespeare;  until  at  last  the  desperate  image  of  Timon  rose 
before  him;  when,  as  though  unable  to  endure  or  to  conceive  a 
more  lamentable  ruin  of  man,  he  turned  for  relief  to  the  pastoral 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD  57 

loves  of  Prince  Florizel  and  Perdita;  and  as  soon  as  the  tone  of 
his  mind  was  restored,  gave  expression  to  its  ultimate  mood  of 
grave  serenity  in  The  Tempest,  and  so  ended. 

This  is  a  pretty  picture,  but  is  it  true?  It  may,  indeed, 
be  admitted  at  once  that  "  Prince  Florizel  and  Perdita  "  are 
charming  creatures,  that  Prospero  is  "grave,"  and  that 
Hermione  is  more  or  less  "  serene  ";  but  why  is  it  that,  in 
our  consideration  of  the  later  plays,  the  whole  of  our  atten- 
tion must  always  be  fixed  upon  these  particular  characters? 
Modern  critics,  in  their  eagerness  to  appraise  everything 
that  is  beautiful  and  good  at  its  proper  value,  seem  to  have 
entirely  forgotten  that  there  is  another  side  to  the  medal; 
and  they  have  omitted  to  point  out  that  these  plays  contain 
a  series  of  portraits  of  peculiar  infamy,  whose  wickedness 
finds  expression  in  language  of  extraordinary  force.  Com- 
ing fresh  from  their  pages  to  the  pages  of  Cymbeline, 
The  Winter's  Tale,  and  The  Tempest,  one  is  aston- 
ished and  perplexed.  How  is  it  possible  to  fit  into  their 
scheme  of  roses  and  maidens  that  "  Italian  fiend  "  the  "  yel- 
low lachimo,"  or  Cloten,  that  "  thing  too  bad  for  bad  re- 
port," or  the  "  crafty  devil,"  his  mother,  or  Leontes,  or  Cali- 
ban, or  Trinculo?  To  omit  these  figures  of  discord  and  evil 
from  our  consideration,  to  banish  them  comfortably  to  the 
background  of  the  stage,  while  Autolycus  and  Miranda  dance 
before  the  footlights,  is  surely  a  fallacy  in  proportion;  for 
the  presentment  of  the  one  group  of  persons  is  every  whit 
as  distinct  and  vigorous  as  that  of  the  other.  Nowhere,  in- 
deed, is  Shakespeare's  violence  of  expression  more  constantly 
displayed  than  in  the  "  gentle  utterances  "  of  his  last  period; 
it  is  here  that  one  finds  Paulina,  in  a  torrent  of  indignation 


58  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

as  far  from  "  grave  serenity  "  as  it  is  from  "  pastoral  love," 
exclaiming  to  Leontes: 

What  studied  torments,  tyrant,  hast  for  me? 
What  wheels?  racks?  fires?  what  flaying?  boiling 
In  leads  or  oils?  what  old  or  newer  torture 
Must  I  receive,  whose  every  word  deserves 
To  taste  of  thy  most  worst?    Thy  tyranny. 
Together  working  with  thy  jealousies. 
Fancies  too  weak  for  boys,  too  green  and  idle 
For  girls  of  nine,  O!  think  what  they  have  done, 
And  then  run  mad  indeed,  stark  mad;  for  all 
Thy  by-gone  fooleries  were  but  spices  of  it. 
That  thou  betray 'dst  Polixenes,  'twas  nothing; 
That  did  but  show  thee,  of  a  fool,  inconstant 
And  damnable  ingrateful;  nor  was't  much 
Thou  would'st  have  poison'd  good  Camillo's  honour, 
To  have  him  kill  a  king;  poor  trespasses. 
More  monstrous  standing  by;  whereof  I  reckon 
The  casting  forth  to  crows  thy  baby  daughter 
To  be  or  none  or  little;  though  a  devil 
Would  have  shed  water  out  of  fire  ere  done't. 
Nor  is't  directly  laid  to  thee,  the  death 
Of  the  young  prince,  whose  honourable  thoughts, 
Thoughts  high  for  one  so  tender,  cleft  the  heart 
That  could  conceive  a  gross  and  foolish  sire 
Blemished  his  gracious  dam. 

Nowhere  are  the  poet's  metaphors  more  nakedly  material ; 
nowhere  does  he  verge  more  often  upon  a  sort  of  brutality  of 
phrase,  a  cruel  coarseness.    lachimo  tells  us  how: 

The  cloyed  will, 
That  satiate  yet  unsatisfied  desire,  that  tub 
Both  filled  and  running,  ravening  first  the  lamb, 
Longs  after  for  the  garbage. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD  59 

and  talks  of: 

an  eye 
Base  and  unlustrous  as  the  smoky  light 
That's  fed  with  stinking  tallow. 

"The  south  fog  rot  him!  "  Cloten  bursts  out  to  Imogen, 
cursing  her  husband  in  an  access  of  hideous  rage. 

What  traces  do  such  passages  as  these  show  of  "  serene 
self-possession,"  of  "  the  highest  wisdom  and  peace,"  or  of 
"  meditative  romance  "?  English  critics,  overcome  by  the 
idea  of  Shakespeare's  ultimate  tranquillity,  have  generally 
denied  to  him  the  authorship  of  the  brothel  scenes  in  Peri- 
cles; but  these  scenes  are  entirely  of  a  piece  with  the  gross- 
nesses  of  The  Winter's  Tale  and  Cymbeline. 

Is  there  no  way  for  men  to  be,  but  women 
Must  be  half- workers? 

says  Posthumus  when  he  hears  of  Imogen's  guilt. 

We  are  all  bastards; 
And  that  most  venerable  man,  which  I 
Did  call  my  father,  was  I  know  not  where 
When  I  was  stamped.    Some  coiner  with  his  tools 
Made  me  a  counterfeit;  yet  my  mother  seemed 
The  Dian  of  that  time;  so  doth  my  wife 
The  nonpareil  of  this — O  vengeance,  vengeance  1 
Me  of  my  lawful  pleasure  she  restrained 
And  prayed  me,  oft,  forbearance;  did  it  with 
A  prudency  so  rosy,  the  sweet  view  on't 
Might  well  have  warmed  old  Saturn,  that  I  thought  her 
As  chaste  as  unsunned  snow — O,  all  the  devils! — 
This  yellow  lachimo,  in  an  hour, — was't  not? 
Or  less, — at  first:  perchance  he  spoke  not;  but, 
Like  a  full-acorned  boar,  a  German  one. 
Cried,  oh!  and  mounted:  found  no  opposition 


6o  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

But  what  he  looked  for  should  oppose,  and  she 
Should  from  encounter  guard. 

And  Leontes,  in  a  similar  situation,  expresses  himself  in 
images  no  less  to  the  point. 

There  have  been 
Or  I  am  much  deceived,  cuckolds  ere  now. 
And  many  a  man  there  is,  even  at  this  present. 
Now,  while  I  speak  this,  holds  his  wife  by  the  arm, 
That  little  thinks  she  has  been  sluiced  in's  absence 
And  his  pond  fished  by  his  next  neighbour,  by 
Sir  Smile,  his  neighbour:  nay,  there'^  comfort  in't. 
Whiles  other  men  have  gates,  and  those  gates  opened, 
As  mine,  against  their  will.    Should  all  despair 
That  have  revolted  wives,  the  tenth  of  mankind 
Would  hang  themselves.    Physic  for't  there's  none; 
It  is  a  bawdy  planet,  that  will  strike 
Where  'tis  predominant;  and  'tis  powerful,  think  it, 
From  east,  west,  north  and  south:  be  it  concluded, 
No  barricado  for  a  belly,  know't; 
It  will  let  in  and  out  the  enemy 
With  bag  and  baggage:  many  thousand  on's 
Have  the  disease,  and  feel't  not. 

It  is  really  a  little  difficult,  in  the  face  of  such  passages,  to 
agree  with  Professor  Dowden's  dictum:  "  In  these  latest 
plays  the  beautiful  pathetic  light  is  always  present." 

But  how  has  it  happened  that  the  judgment  of  so  many 
critics  has  been  so  completely  led  astray?  Charm  and 
gravity,  and  even  serenity,  are  to  be  found  in  many  other 
plays  of  Shakespeare.  Ophelia  is  charming,  Brutus  is  grave, 
Cordelia  is  serene;  are  we  then  to  suppose  that  Hamlet, 
and  Julius  Ccesar,  and  King  Lear  give  expression  to  the 
same   mood   of   high    tranquillity   which   is   betrayed   by 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD  6i 

Cymbeline,  The  Tempest ,  and  The  Winter's  Tale?  "  Cer- 
tainly not,"  reply  the  orthodox  writers,  "  for  you  must 
distinguish.  The  plays  of  the  last  period  are  not  tragedies; 
they  all  end  happily  " — "  in  scenes,"  says  Mr.  GoUancz,  "  of 
forgiveness,  reconciliation,  and  peace."  Virtue,  in  fact,  is  not 
only  virtuous,  it  is  triumphant;  what  would  you  more? 

But  to  this  it  may  be  retorted,  that,  in  the  case  of  one  of 
Shakespeare's  plays,  even  the  final  vision  of  virtue  and 
beauty  triumphant  over  ugliness  and  vice  fails  to  dispel  a 
total  effect  of  horror  and  of  gloom.  For,  in  Measure  for 
Measure,  Isabella  is  no  whit  less  pure  and  lovely  than  any 
Perdita  or  Miranda,  and  her  success  is  as  complete;  yet  who 
would  venture  to  deny  that  the  atmosphere  of  Measure  for 
Measure  was  more  nearly  one  of  despair  than  of  serenity? 
What  is  it,  then,  that  makes  the  difference?  Why  should  a 
happy  ending  seem  in  one  case  futile,  and  in  another  satis- 
factory? Why  does  it  sometimes  matter  to  us  a  great  deal, 
and  sometimes  not  at  all,  whether  virtue  is  rewarded  or  not? 

The  reason,  in  this  case,  is  not  far  to  seek.  Measure  for 
Measure  is,  like  nearly  every  play  of  Shakespeare's  before 
Coriolanus,  essentially  realistic.  The  characters  are  real 
men  and  women;  and  what  happens  to  them  upon  the  stage 
has  all  the  effect  of  what  happens  to  real  men  and  women  in 
actual  life.  Their  goodness  appears  to  be  real  goodness, 
their  wickedness  real  wickedness;  and,  if  their  sufferings  are 
terrible  enough,  we  regret  the  fact,  even  though  in  the  end 
they  triumph,  just  as  we  regret  the  real  sufferings  of  our 
friends.  But,  in  the  plays  of  the  final  period,  all  this  has 
changed;  we  are  no  longer  in  the  real  world,  but  in  a  world 
of  enchantment,  of  mystery,  of  wonder,  a  world  of  shifting 


62  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

visions,  a  v/orld  of  hopeless  anachronisms,  a  world  in  which 
anything  may  happen  next.  The  pretences  of  reality  are 
indeed  usually  preserved,  but  only  the  pretences.  Cymbeline 
is  supposed  to  be  the  king  of  a  real  Britain,  and  the  real 
Augustus  is  supposed  to  demand  tribute  of  him;  but  these 
are  the  reasons  which  his  queen,  in  solemn  audience  with  the 
Roman  ambassador,  urges  to  induce  her  husband  to  declare 
for  war: 

Remember,  sir,  my  liege, 
The  Kings  your  ancestors,  together  with 
The  natural  bravery  of  your  isle,  which  stands 
As  Neptune's  park,  ribbed  and  paled  in 
.    With  rocks  unscaleable  and  roaring  waters. 
With  sands  that  will  not  bear  your  enemies'  boats, 
But  suck  them  up  to  the  topmast.    A  kind  of  conquest 
Caesar  made  here;  but  made  not  here  his  brag 
Of  "  Came,  and  saw,  and  overcame  ";  with  shame — 
The  first  that  ever  touched  him — ^he  was  carried 
From  off  our  coast,  twice  beaten;  and  his  shipping — 
Poor  ignorant  baubles! — on  our  terrible  seas. 
Like  egg-shells  moved  upon  the  surges,  crack'd 
As  easily  'gainst  our  rocks;  for  joy  whereof 
The  famed  Cassibelan,  who  was  once  at  point — 
O  giglot  fortune! — to  master  Caesar's  sword, 
Made  Lud's  town  with  rejoicing  fires  bright 
And  Britons  strut  with  courage. 

It  comes  with  something  of  a  shock  to  remember  that  this 
medley  of  poetry,  bombast,  and  myth  will  eventually  reach 
the  ears  of  no  other  person  than  the  Octavius  of  Antony 
and  Cleopatra;  and  the  contrast  is  the  more  remarkable 
when  one  recalls  the  brilliant  scene  of  negotiation  and 
diplomacy  in  the  latter  play,  which  passes  between  Go- 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD  63 

tavius,  Maecenas  and  Agrippa  on  the  one  side,  and  Antony 
and  Enobarbus  on  the  other,  and  results  in  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  the  rivals  and  the  marriage  of  Antony  and  Octavia. 

Thus  strangely  remote  is  the  world  of  Shakespeare's  latest 
period;  and  it  is  peopled,  this  universe  of  his  invention,  with 
beings  equally  unreal,  with  creatures  either  more  or  less 
than  human,  with  fortunate  princes  and  wicked  step- 
mothers, with  goblins  and  spirits,  with  lost  princesses  and 
insufferable  kings.  And  of  course,  in  this  sort  of  fairy  land, 
it  is  an  essential  condition  that  everything  shall  end  well; 
the  prince  and  princess  are  bound  to  marry  and  live  happily 
ever  afterwards,  or  the  whole  story  is  unnecessary  and  ab- 
surd; and  the  villains  and  the  goblins  must  naturally  repent 
and  be  forgiven.  But  it  is  clear  that  such  happy  endings, 
such  conventional  closes  to  fantastic  tales,  cannot  be  taken 
as  evidences  of  serene  tranquillity  on  the  part  of  their  maker; 
they  merely  show  that  he  knew,  as  well  as  anyone  else,  how 
such  stories  ought  to  end. 

Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  this  combination  of 
charming  heroines  and  happy  endings  which  has  blinded  the 
eyes  of  modern  critics  to  everything  else.  lachimo,  and 
Leontes,  and  even  Caliban,  are  to  be  left  out  of  account,  as 
if,  because  in  the  end  they  repent  or  are  forgiven,  words 
need  not  be  wasted  on  such  reconciled  and  harmonious  fiends. 
It  is  true  they  are  grotesque;  it  is  true  that  such  personages 
never  could  have  lived;  but  who,  one  would  like  to  know, 
has  ever  met  Miranda,  or  become  acquainted  with  Prince 
Florizel  of  Bohemia?  In  this  land  of  faery,  is  it  right  to 
neglect  the  goblins?  In  this  world  of  dreams,  are  we  justi- 
fied in  ignoring  the  nightmares?    Is  it  fair  to  say  that  Shake- 


64  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

speare  was  in  a  "  gentle,  lofty  spirit,  a  peaceful,  tranquil 
mood,"  when  he  was  creating  the  Queen  in  Cymbeline, 
or  writing  the  first  two  acts  of  The  Winter's  Tale? 

Attention  has  never  been  sufficiently  drawn  to  one  other 
characteristic  of  these  plays,  though  it  is  touched  upon  both 
by  Professor  Dowden  and  Dr.  Brandes — the  singular  care- 
lessness with  which  great  parts  of  them  were  obviously  writ- 
ten. Could  anything  drag  more  wretchedly  than  the  denoue- 
ment of  Cymbeline?  And  with  what  perversity  is  the 
great  pastoral  scene  in  The  Winter's  Tale  interspersed 
with  long-winded  intrigues,  and  disguises,  and  homilies?  For 
these  blemishes  are  unlike  the  blemishes  which  enrich  rather 
than  lessen  the  beauty  of  the  earlier  plays;  they  are  not, 
like  them,  interesting  or  delightful  in  themselves;  they  are 
usually  merely  necessary  to  explain  the  action,  and  they 
are  sometimes  purely  irrelevant.  One  is,  it  cannot  be  denied, 
often  bored,  and  occasionally  irritated,  by  Polixenes  and 
Camillo  and  Sebastian  and  Gonzalo  and  Belarius;  these 
personages  have  not  even  the  life  of  ghosts;  they  are  hardly 
more  than  speaking  names,  that  give  patient  utterance  to 
involution  upon  involution.  What  a  contrast  to  the  minor 
characters  of  Shakespeare's  earlier  works! 

It  is  difficult  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  he  was  getting 
bored  himself.  Bored  with  people,  bored  with  real  life, 
bored  with  drama,  bored,  in  fact,  with  everything  except 
poetry  and  poetical  dreams.  He  is  no  longer  interested,  one 
often  feels,  in  what  happens,  or  who  says  what,  so  long  as 
he  can  find  place  for  a  faultless  lyric,  or  a  new,  unimagined 
rhythmical  effect,  or  a  grand  and  mystic  speech.  In  this 
mood  he  must  have  written  his  share  in  the  Two  Noble 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD  65 

Kinsmen,  leaving  the  plot  and  characters  to  Fletcher  to 
deal  with  as  he  pleased,  and  reserving  to  himself  only  the 
opportunities  for  pompous  verse.  In  this  mood  he  must 
have  broken  off  half-way  through  the  tedious  history  of 
Henry  VIII.;  and  in  this  mood  he  must  have  completed, 
with  all  the  resources  of  his  rhetoric,  the  miserable  archaic 
fragment  of  Pericles. 

Is  it  not  thus,  then,  that  we  should  imagine  him  in  the 
last  years  of  his  life?  Half-enchanted  by  visions  of  beauty 
and  loveliness,  and  half-bored  to  death;  on  the  one  side 
inspired  by  a  soaring  fancy  to  the  singing  of  ethereal  songs, 
and  on  the  other  urged  by  a  general  disgust  to  burst  occa- 
sionally through  his  torpor  into  bitter  and  violent  speech? 
If  we  are  to  learn  anything  of  his  mind  from  his  last  works, 
it  is  surely  this. 

And  such  is  the  conclusion  which  is  particularly  forced 
upon  us  by  a  consideration  of  the  play  which  is  in  many 
ways  most  t5^ical  of  Shakespeare's  later  work,  and  the 
one  which  critics  most  consistently  point  to  as  containing 
the  very  essence  of  his  final  benignity — The  Tempest. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  peculiar  characteristics  which 
distinguish  Cymbeline  and  The  Winter's  Tale  from  the 
dramas  of  Shakespeare's  prime,  are  present  here  in  a  still 
greater  degree.  In  The  Tempest,  unreality  has  reached 
its  apotheosis.  Two  of  the  principal  characters  are  frankly 
not  human  beings  at  all;  and  the  whole  action  passes, 
through  a  series  of  impossible  occurrences,  in  a  place  which 
can  only  by  courtesy  be  said  to  exist.  The  Enchanted 
Island,  indeed,  peopled,  for  a  timeless  moment,  by  this 
strange  fantastic  medley  of  persons  and  of  things,  has  been 


66  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

cut  adrift  for  ever  from  common  sense,  and  floats,  buoyed 
up  by  a  sea,  not  of  waters,  but  of  poetry.  Never  did  Shake- 
speare's magnificence  of  diction  reach  more  marvellous 
heights  than  in  some  of  the  speeches  of  Prospero,  or  his 
lyric  art  a  purer  beauty  than  in  the  songs  of  Ariel;  nor 
is  it  only  in  these  ethereal  regions  that  the  triumph  of  his 
language  asserts  itself.  It  finds  as  splendid  a  vent  in  the 
curses  of  Caliban: 

All  the  infection  that  the  sun  sucks  up 

From  bogs,  fens,  flats,  on  Prosper  fall,  and  make  him 

By  inch-meal  a  disease! 

and  in  the  similes  of  Trinculo: 

Yond'  same  black  cloud,  yond'  huge  one,  looks  like  a  foul 
bombard  that  would  shed  his  liquor. 

The  denouement  itself,  brought  about  by  a  preposterous 
piece  of  machinery,  and  lost  in  a  whirl  of  rhetoric,  is  hardly 
more  than  a  peg  for  fine  writing. 

O,  it  is  monstrous,  monstrous! 
Methought  the  billows  spoke  and  told  me  of  it; 
The  winds  did  sing  it  to  me;  and  the  thunder. 
That  deep  and  dreadful  organ-pipe,  pronounced 
The  name  of  Prosper;  it  did  bass  my  trespass. 
Therefore  my  son  i'  th'  ooze  is  bedded,  and 
I'll  seek  him  deeper  than  e'er  plummet  sounded. 
And  with  him  there  lie  mudded. 

And  this  gorgeous  phantasm  of  a  repentance  from  the-mouth 
of  the  pale  phantom  Alonzo  is  a  fitting  climax  to  the  whole 
fantastic  play. 
A  comparison  naturally  suggests  itself,  between  what  was 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD  67 

perhaps  the  last  of  Shakespeare's  completed  works,  and 
that  early  drama  which  first  gave  undoubted  proof  that 
his  imagination  had  taken  wings.  The  points  of  resem- 
blance between  The  Tempest  and  A  Mid-summer  Night's 
Dream,  their  common  atmosphere  of  romance  and  magic, 
the  beautiful  absurdities  of  their  intrigues,  their  studied 
contrasts  of  the  grotesque  with  the  delicate,  the  ethereal 
with  the  earthy,  the  charm  of  their  lyrics,  the  verve  of  their 
vulgar  comedy — these,  of  course,  are  obvious  enough;  but 
it  is  the  points  of  difference  which  really  make  the  compari- 
son striking.  One  thing,  at  any  rate,  is  certain  about  the 
wood  near  Athens — it  is  full  of  life.  The  persons  that  haunt 
it — though  most  of  them  are  hardly  more  than  children,  and 
some  of  them  are  fairies,  and  all  of  them  are  too  agreeable 
to  be  true — are  nevertheless  substantial  creatures,  whose 
loves  and  jokes  and  quarrels  receive  our  thorough  sympathy; 
and  the  air  they  breathe — the  lords  and  the  ladies,  no  less 
than  the  mechanics  and  the  elves — is  instinct  with  an  ex- 
quisite good-humour,  which  makes  us  as  happy  as  the  night 
is  long.  To  turn  from  Theseus  and  Titania  and  Bottom 
to  the  Enchanted  Island,  is  to  step  out  of  a  country  lane  into 
a  conservatory.  The  roses  and  the  dandelions  have  vanished 
before  preposterous  cactuses,  and  fascinating  orchids  too 
delicate  for  the  open  air;  and,  in  the  artificial  atmosphere, 
the  gaiety  of  youth  has  been  replaced  by  the  disillusionment 
of  middle  age.  Prospero  is  the  central  figure  of  The  Tem- 
pest; and  it  has  often  been  wildly  asserted  that  he  is  a  por- 
trait of  the  author — an  embodiment  of  that  spirit  of  wise 
benevolence  which  is  supposed  to  have  thrown  a  halo  over 
Shakespeare's  later  life.     But,  on  closer  inspection,  the 


68  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

portrait  seems  to  be  as  imaginary  as  the  original.  To  an 
irreverent  eye,  the  ex-Duke  of  Milan  would  perhaps  appear 
as  an  unpleasantly  crusty  personage,  in  whom  a  twelve  years' 
monopoly  of  the  conversation  had  developed  an  inordinate 
propensity  for  talking.  These  may  have  been  the  sentiments 
of  Ariel,  safe  at  the  Bermoothes;  but  to  state  them  is  to 
risk  at  least  ten  years  in  the  knotty  entrails  of  an  oak,  and 
it  is  sufficient  to  point  out,  that  if  Prospero  is  wise,  he  is 
also  self-opinionated  and  sour,  that  his  gravity  is  often 
another  name  for  pedantic  severity,  and  that  there  is  no 
character  in  the  play  to  whom,  during  some  part  of  it,  he 
is  not  studiously  disagreeable.  But  his  Milanese  country- 
men are  not  even  disagreeable;  they  are  simply  dull.  "  This 
is  the  silliest  stuff  that  e'er  I  heard,"  remarked  Hippolyta 
of  Bottom's  amateur  theatricals;  and  one  is  tempted  to 
wonder  what  she  would  have  said  to  the  dreary  puns  and 
interminable  conspiracies  of  Alonzo,  and  Gonzalo,  and  Sebas- 
tian, and  Antonio,  and  Adrian,  and  Francisco,  and  other  ship- 
wrecked noblemen.  At  all  events,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  they  would  not  have  had  the  entree  at  Athens. 

The  depth  of  the  gulf  between  the  two  plays  is,  however, 
best  measured  by  a  comparison  of  Caliban  and  his  masters 
with  Bottom  and  his  companions.  The  guileless  group  of 
English  mechanics,  whose  sports  are  interrupted  by  the  niis- 
chief  of  Puck,  offers  a  strange  contrast  to  the  hideous  trio 
of  the  "  jester,"  the  "  drunken  butler,"  and  the  "  savage  and 
deformed  slave,"  whose  designs  are  thwarted  by  the  magic 
of  Ariel.  Bottbm  was  the  first  of  Shakespeare's  masterpieces 
in  characterisation,  Caliban  was  the  last:  and  what  a  world 
of  bitterness  and  horror  lies  between  theml     The  charm- 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINAL  PERIOD  69 

ing  coxcomb  it  is  easy  to  know  and  love;  but  the  "  freckled 
whelp  hag-born  "  moves  us  mysteriously  to  pity  and  to 
terror,  eluding  us  for  ever  in  fearful  allegories,  and  strange 
coils  of  disgusted  laughter  and  phantasmagorical  tears.  The 
physical  vigour  of  the  presentment  is  often  so  remorseless 
as  to  shock  us.  "  I  left  them,"  says  Ariel,  speaking  of  Cali- 
ban and  his  crew: 

I'  the  filthy-mantled  pool  beyond  your  cell, 
There  dancing  up  to  the  chins,  that  the  foul  lake 
O'er  stunk  their  feet. 

But  at  other  times  the  great  half-human  shapes  seems  to 
swell,  like  the  "  Pan  "  of  Victor  Hugo,  into  something  un- 
imaginably vast. 

You  taught  me  language,  and  my  profit  on't 
Is,  I  know  how  to  curse. 

Is  this  Caliban  addressing  Prospero,  or  Job  addressing  God? 
It  may  be  either;  but  it  is  not  serene,  nor  benign,  nor  pas- 
toral, nor  "  On  the  Heights." 

1906. 


THE  LIVES  OF  THE  POETS 


THE  LIVES  OF  THE  POETS' 

No  one  needs  an  excuse  for  re-opening  the  Lives  of  the  Poets; 
the  book  is  too  delightful.  It  is  not,  of  course,  as  delightful 
as  Boswell;  but  who  re-opens  Boswell?  Boswell  is  in  an- 
other category;  because,  as  every  one  knows,  when  he  has 
once  been  opened  he  can  never  be  shut.  But,  on  its  different 
level,  the  Lives  will  always  hold  a  firm  and  comfortable 
place  in  our  affections.  After  Boswell,  it  is  the  book  which 
brings  us  nearer  than  any  other  to  the  mind  of  Dr.  Johnson. 
That  is  its  primary  import.  We  do  not  go  to  it  for  informa- 
tion or  for  instruction,  or  that  our  tastes  may  be  improved, 
or  that  our  S5mipathies  may  be  widened;  we  go  to  it  to 
see  what  Dr.  Johnson  thought.  Doubtless,  during  the 
process,  we  are  informed  and  instructed  and  improved  in 
various  ways;  but  these  benefits  are  incidental,  like  the 
invigoration  which  comes  from  a  mountain  walk.  It  is  not 
for  the  sake  of  the  exercise  that  we  set  out;  but  for  the 
sake  of  the  view.  The  view  from  the  mountain  which  is 
Samuel  Johnson  is  so  familiar,  and  has  been  so  constantly 
analysed  and  admired,  that  further  description  would  be 
superfluous.  It  is  sufficient  for  us  to  recognise  that  he  is 
a  mountain,  and  to  pay  all  the  reverence  that  is  due.    In 

^  Lives  of  the  English  Poets.  By  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.  Edited 
by  George  Birkbeck  Hill,  D.C.L.  Oxford:  at  the  Clarendon  Press, 
1905. 

73 


74  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

one  of  Emerson's  poems  a  mountain  and  a  squirrel  begin  to 
discuss  ^ach  other's  merits;  and  the  squirrel  comes  to  the 
triumphant  conclusion  that  he  is  very  much  the  better  of 
the  two,  since  he  can  crack  a  nut,  while  the  mountain  can 
do  no  such  thing.  The  parallel  is  close  enough  between 
this  impudence  and  the  attitude — implied,  if  not  expressed 
— of  too  much  modern  criticism  towards  the  sort  of  qualities 
— the  easy,  indolent  power,  the  searching  sense  of  actuality, 
the  combined  command  of  sanity  and  paradox,  the  immova- 
ble independence  of  thought — which  went  to  the  making 
of  the  Lives  of  the  Poets.  There  is  only,  perhaps,  one  flaw 
in  the  analogy:  that,  in  this  particular  instance,  the  mountain 
was  able  to  crack  nuts  a  great  deal  better  than  any  squirrel 
that  ever  lived. 

That  the  Lives  continue  to  be  read,  admired,  and  edited, 
is  in  itself  a  high  proof  of  the  eminence  of  Johnson's  in- 
tellect; because,  as  serious  criticism,  they  can  hardly  appear 
to  the  modern  reader  to  be  very  far  removed  from  the 
futile.  Johnson's  aesthetic  judgments  are  almost  invariably 
subtle,  or  solid,  or  bold;  they  have  always  some  good  quality 
to  recommend  them — except  one:  they  are  never  right. 
That  is  an  unfortunate  deficiency;  but  no  one  can  doubt 
that  Johnson  has  made  up  for  it,  and  that  his  wit  has 
saved  all.  He  has  managed  to  be  wrong  so  cleverly,  that 
nobody  minds.  When  Gray,  for  instance,  points  the  moral 
to  his  poem  on  Walpole's  cat  with  a  reminder  to  the  fair 
that  all  that  glisters  is  not  gold,  Johnson  remarks  that  this 
is  "  of  no  relation  to  the  purpose;  if  what  glistered  had  been 
gold,  the  cat  would  not  have  gone  into  the  water;  and,  if 
she  had,  would  not  less  have  been  drowned."    Could  any- 


THE  LIVES  OF  THE  POETS  75 

thing  be  more  ingenious,  or  more  neatly  put,  or  more  ob- 
viously true?  But  then,  to  use  Johnson's  own  phrase,  could 
anything  be  of  less  "  relation  to  the  purpose  "?  It  is  his 
wit — and  we  are  speaking,  of  course,  of  wit  in  its  widest 
sense — that  has  sanctified  Johnson's  perversities  and  errors, 
that  has  embalmed  them  for  ever,  and  that  has  put  his 
book,  with  all  its  mass  of  antiquated  doctrine,  beyond  the 
reach  of  time. 

For  it  is  not  only  in  particular  details  that  Johnson's 
criticism  fails  to  convince  us;  his  entire  point  of  view  is 
patently  out  of  date.  Our  judgments  differ  from  his,  not 
only  because  our  tastes  are  different,  but  because  our  whole 
method  of  judging  has  changed.  Thus,  to  the  historian 
of  letters,  the  Lives  have  a  special  interest,  for  they  afford 
a  standing  example  of  a  great  dead  tradition — a  tradition 
whose  characteristics  throw  more  than  one  curious  light  upon 
the  literary  feelings  and  ways  which  have  become  habitual 
to  ourselves.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  difference  between 
the  critical  methods  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  those  of 
the  present  day,  is  the  difference  in  sympathy.  The  most 
cursory  glance  at  Johnson's  book  is  enough  to  show  that 
he  judged  authors  as  if  they  were  criminals  in  the  dock, 
answerable  for  every  infraction  of  the  rules  and  regulations 
laid  down  by  the  laws  of  art,  which  it  was  his  business  to 
administer  without  fear  or  favour.  Johnson  never  inquired 
what  poets  were  trying  to  do;  he  merely  aimed  at  discover- 
ing whether  what  they  had  done  complied  with  the  canons 
of  poetry.  Such  a  system  of  criticism  was  clearly  unexcep- 
tionable, upon  one  condition — that  the  critic  was  quite  cer- 
tain what  the  canons  of  poetry  were;  but  the  moment  that 


76  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

it  became  obvious  that  the  only  way  of  arriving  at  a  con- 
clusion upon  the  subject  was  by  consulting  the  poets  them- 
selves, the  whole  situation  completely  changed.  The  judge 
had  to  bow  to  the  prisoner's  ruling.  In  other  words,  the 
critic  discovered  that  his  first  duty  was,  not  to  criticise,  but 
to  understand  the  object  of  his  criticism.  That  is  the  essen- 
tial distinction  between  the  school  of  Johnson  and  the  school 
of  Sainte-Beuve.  No  one  can  doubt  the  greater  width  and 
profundity  of  the  modern  method;  but  it  is  not  without 
its  drawbacks.  An  excessive  sympathy  with  one's  author 
brings  its  own  set  of  errors:  the  critic  is  so  happy  to  explain 
everything,  to  show  how  this  was  the  product  of  the  age, 
how  that  was  the  product  of  environment,  and  how  the 
other  was  the  inevitable  result  of  inborn  qualities  and  tastes 
— that  he  sometimes  forgets  to  mention  whether  the  work 
in  question  has  any  value.  It  is  then  that  one  cannot  help 
regretting  the  Johnsonian  black  cap. 

But  other  defects,  besides  lack  of  sympathy,  mar  the  Lives 
of  the  Poets.  One  cannot  help  feeling  that  no  matter  how 
anxious  Johnson  might  have  been  to  enter  into  the  spirit 
of  some  of  the  greatest  of  the  masters  with  whom  he  was 
concerned,  he  never  could  have  succeeded.  Whatever  critical 
method  he  might  have  adopted,  he  still  would  have  been 
unable  to  appreciate  certain  literary  qualities,  which,  to  our 
minds  at  any  rate,  appear  to  be  the  most  important  of  all. 
His  opinion  of  Lycidas  is  well  known:  he  found  that  poem 
"  easy,  vulgar,  and  therefore  disgusting."  Of  the  songs 
in  Contus  he  remarks:  "  they  are  harsh  in  their  diction,  and 
not  very  musical  in  their  numbers."  He  could  see  nothing 
in  the  splendour  and  elevation  of  Gray,  but  "  glittering  ac- 


THE  LIVES  OF  THE  POETS  77 

cumulations  of  ungraceful  ornaments."  The  passionate 
intensity  of  Donne  escaped  him  altogether;  he  could  only- 
wonder  how  so  ingenious  a  writer  could  be  so  absurd.  Such 
preposterous  judgments  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  in- 
herent deficiencies  of  taste;  Johnson  had  no  ear,  and  he 
had  no  imagination.  These  are,  indeed,  grievous  disabilities 
in  a  critic.  What  could  have  induced  such  a  man,  the  im- 
patient reader  is  sometimes  tempted  to  ask,  to  set  himself 
up  as  a  judge  of  poetry? 

The  answer  to  the  question  is  to  be  found  in  the  remark- 
able change  which  has  come  over  our  entire  conception  of 
poetry,  since  the  time  when  Johnson  wrote.  It  has  often 
been  stated  that  the  essential  characteristic  of  that  great 
Romantic  Movement  which  began  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  was  the  re-introduction  of  Nature  into 
the  domain  of  poetry.  Incidentally,  it  is  curious  to  observe 
that  nearly  every  literary  revolution  has  been  hailed  by  its 
supporters  as  a  return  to  Nature.  No  less  than  the  school  of 
Coleridge  and  Wordsworth,  the  school  of  Denham,  of 
Dryden,  and  of  Pope,  proclaimed  itself  as  the  champion 
of  Nature;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  Donne  himself 
— the  father  of  all  the  conceits  and  elaborations  of  the 
seventeenth  century — ^wrote  under  the  impulse  of  a  Natu- 
ralistic reaction  against  the  conventional  classicism  of  the 
Renaissance.  Precisely  the  same  contradictions  took  place 
in  France.  Nature  was  the  watchword  of  Malherbe  and 
of  Boileau;  and  it  was  equally  the  watchword  of  Victor 
Hugo.  To  judge  by  the  successive  proclamations  of  poets, 
the  development  of  literature  offers  a  singular  paradox. 
The  further  it  goes  back,  the  more  sophisticated  it  becomes; 


78  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

and  it  grows  more  and  more  natural  as  it  grows  distant 
from  the  State  of  Nature.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  at 
least  certain  that  the  Romantic  revival  peculiarly  deserves 
to  be  called  Naturalistic,  because  it  succeeded  in  bringing 
into  vogue  the  operations  of  the  external  world — "  the  Vege- 
table Universe,"  as  Blake  called  it — as  subject-matter  for 
poetry.  But  it  would  have  done  very  little,  if  it  had  done 
nothing  more  than  this.  Thomson,  in  the  full  meridian 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  wrote  poems  upon  the  subject 
of  Nature;  but  it  would  be  foolish  to  suppose  that  Words- 
worth and  Coleridge  merely  carried  on  a  fashion  which 
Thomson  had  begun.  Nature,  with  them,  was  something 
more  than  a  peg  for  descriptive  and  didactic  verse;  it  was 
the  manifestation  of  the  vast  and  mysterious  forces  of  the 
world.  The  publication  of  The  Ancient  Mariner  is  a  land- 
mark in  the  history  of  letters,  not  because  of  its  descriptions 
of  natural  objects,  but  because  it  swept  into  the  poet's 
vision  a  whole  new  universe  of  infinite  and  eternal  things; 
it  was  the  discovery  of  the  Unknown.  We  are  still  under 
the  spell  of  The  Ancient  Mariner;  and  poetry  to  us  means, 
primarily,  something  which  suggests,  by  means  of  words, 
mysteries  and  infinitudes.  Thus,  music  and  imagination 
seem  to  us  the  most  essential  qualities  of  poetry,  because 
they  are  the  most  potent  means  by  which  such  suggestions 
may  be  invoked.  But  the  eighteenth  century  knew  none 
of  these  things.  To  Lord  Chesterfield  and  to  Pope,  to  Prior 
and  to  Horace  Walpole,  there  was  nothing  at  all  strange 
about  the  world;  it  was  charming,  it  was  disgusting,  it  was 
ridiculous,  and  it  was  just  what  one  might  have  expected. 
In  such  a  world,  why  should  poetry,  more  than  anything 


THE  LIVES  OF  THE  POETS  79 

else,  be  mysterious?     Nol     Let  it  be  sensible;   that  was 
enough. 

The  new  edition  of  the  Lives,  which  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill 
prepared  for  publication  before  his  death,  and  which  has 
been  issued  by  the  Clarendon  Press,  with  a  brief  Memoir 
of  the  editor,  would  probably  have  astonished  Dr.  Johnson. 
But,  though  the  elaborate  erudition  of  the  notes  and  ap- 
pendices might  have  surprised  him,  it  would  not  have  put 
him  to  shame.  One  can  imagine  his  growling  scorn  of  the 
scientific  conscientiousness  of  the  present  day.  And  indeed, 
the  three  tomes  of  Dr.  Hill's  edition,  with  all  their  solid 
wealth  of  information,  their  voluminous  scholarship,  their 
accumulation  of  vast  research,  are  a  little  ponderous  and 
a  little  ugly;  the  hand  is  soon  wearied  with  the  weight,  and 
the  eye  is  soon  distracted  by  the  varying  types,  and  the 
compressed  columns  of  the  notes,  and  the  paragraphic  nu- 
merals in  the  margins.  This  is  the  price  that  must  be  paid 
for  increased  efficiency.  The  wise  reader  will  divide  his 
attention  between  the  new  business-like  edition  and  one  of 
the  charming  old  ones,  in  four  comfortable  volumes,  where 
the  text  is  supreme  upon  the  page,  and  the  paragraphs  fol- 
low one  another  at  leisurely  intervals.  The  type  may  be 
a  little  faded,  and  the  paper  a  little  yellow;  but  what  of 
that?  It  is  all  quiet  and  easy;  and,  as  one  reads,  the 
brilliant  sentences  seem  to  come  to  one,  out  of  the  Past, 
with  the  intimacy  of  a  conversation. 

1906. 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND^ 

When  Napoleon  was  starting  for  his  campaign  in  Russia, 
he  ordered  the  proof-sheets  of  a  forthcoming  book  about 
which  there  had  been  some  disagreement  among  the  censors 
of  the  press,  to  be  put  into  his  carriage,  so  that  he  might 
decide  for  himself  what  suppressions  it  might  be  necessary 
to  make.  "  Je  m'ennuie  en  route;  je  lirai  ces  volumes,  et 
j'ecrirai  de  Mayence  ce  qu'il  y  aura  a  faire."  The  volumes 
thus  chosen  to  beguile  the  imperial  leisure  between  Paris 
and  Mayence  contained  the  famous  correspondence  of  Ma- 
dame du  Deffand  with  Horace  Walpole.  By  the  Emperor's 
command  a  few  excisions  were  made,  and  the  book — re- 
printed from  Miss  Berry's  original  edition  which  had  ap- 
peared two  years  earlier  in  England — was  published  almost 
at  once.  The  sensation  in  Paris  was  immense;  the  excite- 
ment of  the  Russian  campaign  itself  was  half-forgotten; 
and  for  some  time  the  blind  old  inhabitant  of  the  Convent 
of  Saint  Joseph  held  her  own  as  a  subject  of  conversation 
with  the  burning  of  Moscow  and  the  passage  of  the  Bere- 
zina.   We  cannot  wonder  that  this  was  so.    In  the  Parisian 


^Lettres  de  la  Marquise  du  Deffand  &  Horace  Walpole  (1766-80). 
Premier  Edition  complete,  augmentee  d'environ  500  Lettres  inedites, 
publiees,  d'apres  les  originaux,  avec  une  introduction,  des  notes,  et  une 
table  des  noms,  par  Mrs.  Paget  Toynbee.    3  vols.    Methuen,  1912. 

83 


84  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

drawing-room  of  those  days  the  letters  of  Madame  du 
Deffand  must  have  exercised  a  double  fascination — on  the 
one  hand  as  a  mine  of  gossip  about  numberless  persons  and 
events  still  familiar  to  many  a  living  memory,  and,  on  the 
other,  as  a  detailed  and  brilliant  record  of  a  state  of  society 
which  had  already  ceased  to  be  actual  and  become  historical. 
The  letters  were  hardly  more  than  thirty  years  old;  but 
the  world  which  they  depicted  in  all  its  intensity  and  all 
its  singularity — the  world  of  the  old  regime — had  vanished 
for  ever  into  limbo.  Between  it  and  the  eager  readers  of 
the  First  Empire  a  gulf  was  fixed — a  narrow  gulf,  but  a 
deep  one,  still  hot  and  sulphurous  with  the  volcanic  fires 
of  the  Revolution.  Since  then  a  century  has  passed;  the 
gulf  has  widened;  and  the  vision  which  these  curious  letters 
show  us  to-day  seems  hardly  less  remote — from  some  points 
of  view,  indeed,  even  more — than  that  which  is  revealed  to 
us  in  the  Memoirs  of  Cellini  or  the  correspondence  of  Cicero. 
Yet  the  vision  is  not  simply  one  of  a  strange  and  dead 
antiquity:  there  is  a  personal  and  human  element  in  the 
letters  which  gives  them  a  more  poignant  interest,  and 
brings  them  close  to  ourselves.  The  soul  of  man  is  not 
subject  to  the  rumour  of  periods;  and  these  pages,  im- 
pregnated though  they  be  with  the  abolished  life  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  can  never  be  out  of  date. 

A  fortunate  chance  enables  us  now,  for  the  first  time,  to 
appreciate  them  in  their  completeness.  The  late  Mrs.  Paget 
Toynbee,  while  preparing  her  edition  of  Horace  Walpole's 
letters,  came  upon  the  trace  of  the  original  manuscripts, 
which  had  long  laid  hidden  in  obscurity  in  a  country  house 
in  Staffordshire.    The  publication  of  these  manuscripts  in 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  85 

full,  accompanied  by  notes  and  indexes  in  which  Mrs.  Toyn- 
bee's  well-known  accuracy,  industry  and  tact  are  everywhere 
conspicuous,  is  an  event  of  no  small  importance  to  lovers 
of  French  literature.  A  great  mass  of  new  and  deeply  in- 
teresting material  makes  its  appearance.  The  original  edi- 
tion produced  by  Miss  Berry  in  1810,  from  which  all  the 
subsequent  editions  were  reprinted  with  varying  degrees  of 
inaccuracy,  turns  out  to  have  contained  nothing  more  than 
a  comparatively  small  fraction  of  the  whole  correspondence; 
of  the  838  letters  published  by  Mrs.  Toynbee,  485  are  en- 
tirely new,  and  of  the  rest  only  52  were  printed  by  Miss 
Berry  in  their  entirety.  Miss  Berry's  edition  was,  in  fact, 
simply  a  selection,  and  as  a  selection  it  deserves  nothing 
but  praise.  It  skims  the  cream  of  the  correspondence; 
and  it  faithfully  preserves  the  main  outline  of  the  story 
which  the  letters  reveal.  No  doubt  that  was  enough  for 
the  readers  of  that  generation;  indeed,  even  for  the  more 
exacting  reader  of  to-day,  there  is  something  a  little  over- 
whelming in  the  closely  packed  2,000  pages  of  Mrs.  Toyn- 
bee's  volumes.  Enthusiasm  alone  will  undertake  to  grapple 
with  them,  but  enthusiasm  will  be  rewarded.  In  place  of 
the  truthful  summary  of  the  earlier  editions,  we  have  now 
the  truth  itself — the  truth  in  all  its  subtle  gradations,  all  its 
long-drawn-out  suspensions,  all  its  intangible  and  irremedi- 
able obscurities:  it  is  the  difference  between  a  clear-cut 
drawing  in  black-and-white  and  a  finished  painting  in  oils. 
Probably  Miss  Berry's  edition  will  still  be  preferred  by  the 
ordinary  reader  who  wishes  to  become  acquainted  with  a 
celebrated  figure  in  French  literature;  but  Mrs.  Toynbee's 
will  always  be  indispensable  for  the  historical  student,  and 


86  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

invaluable  for  any  one  with  the  leisure,  the  patience,  and 
the  taste  for  a  detailed  and  elaborate  examination  of  a 
singular  adventure  of  the  heart. 

The  Marquise  du  Deffand  was  perhaps  the  most  typical 
representative  of  that  phase  of  civilisation  which  came  into 
existence  in  Western  Europe  during  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  reached  its  most  concentrated  and 
characteristic  form  about  the  year  1750  in  the  drawing- 
rooms  of  Paris.  She  was  supremely  a  woman  of  her  age; 
but  it  is  important  to  notice  that  her  age  was  the  first,  and 
not  the  second,  half  of  the  eighteenth  century:  it  was  the 
age  of  the  Regent  Orleans,  Fontenelle,  and  the  young  Vol- 
taire; not  that  of  Rousseau,  the  Encyclopcedia,  and  the 
Patriarch  of  Ferney.  It  is  true  that  her  letters  to  Walpole, 
to  which  her  fame  is  mainly  due,  were  written  between  1766 
and  1780;  but  they  are  the  letters  of  an  old  woman,  and 
they  bear  upon  every  page  of  them  the  traces  of  a  mind 
to  which  the  whole  movement  of  contemporary  life  was  pro- 
foundly distasteful.  The  new  forces  to  which  the  eighteenth 
century  gave  birth  in  thought,  in  art,  in  sentiment,  in  action 
— which  for  us  form  its  peculiar  interest  and  its  peculiar 
glory — were  anathema  to  Madame  du  Deffand.  In  her  let- 
ters to  Walpole,  whenever  she  compares  the  present  with  the 
past  her  bitterness  becomes  extreme.  "  J'ai  eu  autrefois," 
she  writes  in  1778,  "  des  plaisirs  indicibles  aux  operas  de 
Quinault  et  de  Lulli,  et  au  jeu  de  Thevenart  et  de  la  Lemaur. 
Pour  aujourd'hui,  tout  me  parait  detestable:  acteurs, 
auteurs,  musiciens,  beaux  esprits,  philosophes,  tout  est  de 
mauvais  gout,  tout  est  affreux,  affreux."  That  great  move- 
ment towards  intellectual  and  political  emancipation  which 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  87 

centred  in  the  Encyclopcedia  and  the  Philosophes  was 
the  object  of  her  particular  detestation.  She  saw  Diderot 
once — and  that  was  enough  for  both  of  them.  She  could 
never  understand  why  it  was  that  M.  de  Voltaire  would 
persist  in  wasting  his  talent  for  writing  over  such  a  dreary 
subject  as  religion.  Turgot,  she  confessed,  was  an  honest 
man,  but  he  was  also  a  "  sot  animal."  His  dismissal  from 
office — that  fatal  act,  which  made  the  French  Revolution 
inevitable — delighted  her:  she  concealed  her  feelings  from 
Walpole,  who  admired  him,  but  she  was  outspoken  enough 
to  the  Duchesse  de  Choiseul.  "  Le  renvoi  du  Turgot  me 
plait  extremement,"  she  wrote;  "  tout  me  parait  en  bon 
train."  And  then  she  added,  more  prophetically  than  she 
knew,  "  Mais,  assurement,  nous  n'en  resterons  pas  1^."  No 
doubt  her  dislike  of  the  Encyclopaedists  and  all  their  works 
was  in  part  a  matter  of  personal  pique — the  result  of  her 
famous  quarrel  with  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  under 
whose  opposing  banner  d'Alembert  and  all  the  intellectual 
leaders  of  Parisian  society  had  unhesitatingly  ranged  them- 
selves. But  that  quarrel  was  itself  far  more  a  symptom  of 
a  deeply  rooted  spiritual  antipathy  than  a  mere  vulgar 
struggle  for  influence  between  two  rival  salonnidres.  There 
are  indications  that,  even  before  it  took  place,  the  elder 
woman's  friendship  for  d'Alembert  was  giving  way  under 
the  strain  of  her  scorn  for  his  advanced  views  and  her  hatred 
of  his  proselytising  cast  of  mind.  "  II  y  a  de  certains 
articles,"  she  complained  to  Voltaire  in  1763 — a  year  before 
the  final  estrangement — "  qui  sont  devenus  pour  lui  affaires 
de  parti,  et  sur  lesquels  je  ne  lui  trouve  pas  le  sens  commun." 
The  truth  is  that  d'Alembert  and  his  friends  were  moving, 


88  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

and  Madame  du  Deffand  was  standing  still.  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse  simply  precipitated  and  intensified  an  inevita- 
ble rupture.  She  was  the  younger  generation  knocking  at 
the  door. 

Madame  du  Deffand's  generation  had,  indeed,  very  little 
in  common  with  that  ardent,  hopeful,  speculative,  senti- 
mental group  of  friends  who  met  together  every  evening 
in  the  drawing-room  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse.  Born 
at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  she  had  come  into 
the  world  in  the  brilliant  days  of  the  Regent,  whose  witty 
and  licentious  reign  had  suddenly  dissipated  the  atmosphere 
of  gloom  and  bigotry  imposed  upon  society  by  the  moribund 
Court  of  Louis  XIV.  For  a  fortnight  (so  she  confessed  to 
Walpole)  she  was  actually  the  Regent's  mistress;  and  a 
fortnight,  in  those  days,  was  a  considerable  time.  Then 
she  became  the  intimate  friend  of  Madame  de  Prie — the 
singular  woman  who,  for  a  moment,  on  the  Regent's  death, 
during  the  government  of  M.  le  Due,  controlled  the  des- 
tinies of  France,  and  who  committed  suicide  when  that 
amusement  was  denied  her.  During  her  early  middle  age 
Madame  du  Deffand  was  one  of  the  principal  figures  in  the 
palace  of  Sceaux,  where  the  Duchesse  du  Maine,  the  grand- 
daughter of  the  great  Conde  and  the  daughter-in-law  of 
Louis  XIV.,  kept  up  for  many  years  an  almost  royal  state 
among  the  most  distinguished  men  and  women  of  the  time. 
It  was  at  Sceaux,  with  its  endless  succession  of  entertain- 
ments and  conversations — supper-parties  and  water-parties, 
concerts  and  masked  balls,  plays  in  the  little  theatre  and 
•  picnics  under  the  great  trees  of  the  park — that  Madame  du 
Deffand  came  to  her  maturity  and  established  her  position 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  89 

as  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  society  in  which  she  moved. 
The  nature  of  that  society  is  plainly  enough  revealed  in  the 
letters  and  the  memoirs  that  have  come  down  to  us.  The 
days  of  formal  pomp  and  vast  representation  had  ended  for 
ever  when  the  "  Grand  Monarque  "  was  no  longer  to  be  seen 
strutting,  in  periwig  and  red-heeled  shoes,  down  the  glitter- 
ing gallery  of  Versailles;  the  intimacy  and  seclusion  of  mod- 
ern hfe  had  not  yet  begun.  It  was  an  intermediate  period, 
and  the  comparatively  small  group  formed  by  the  elite 
of  the  rich,  refined,  and  intelligent  classes  led  an  existence 
in  which  the  elements  of  publicity  and  privacy  were  curi- 
ously combined.  Never,  certainly,  before  or  since,  have  any 
set  of  persons  lived  so  absolutely  and  unreservedly  with  and 
for  their  friends  as  these  high  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the 
middle  years  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  circle  of  one's 
friends  was,  in  those  days,  the  framework  of  one's  whole 
being;  within  which  was  to  be  found  all  that  life  had  to 
offer,  and  outside  of  which  no  interest,  however  fruitful, 
no  passion,  however  profound,  no  art,  however  soaring,  was 
of  the  slightest  account.  Thus  while  in  one  sense  the  ideal 
of  such  a  society  was  an  eminently  selfish  one,  it  is  none 
the  less  true  that  there  have  been  very  few  societies  indeed 
in  which  the  ordinary  forms  of  personal  selfishness  have 
played  so  small  a  part.  The  selfishness  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  a  communal  selfishness.  Each  individual  was 
expected  to  practise,  and  did  in  fact  practise  to  a  consum- 
mate degree,  those  difficult  arts  which  make  the  wheels  of 
human  intercourse  run  smoothly — the  arts  of  tact  and  tem- 
per, of  frankness  and  sympathy,  of  delicate  compliment  and 
exquisite  self-abnegation — with  the  result  that  a  condition 


90  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

of  living  was  produced  which,  in  all  its  superficial  and  ob- 
vious qualities,  was  one  of  unparalleled  amenity.  Indeed, 
those  persons  who  were  privileged  to  enjoy  it  showed  their 
appreciation  of  it  in  an  unequivocal  way — by  the  tenacity 
with  which  they  clung  to  the  scene  of  such  delights  and 
graces.  They  refused  to  grow  old;  they  almost  refused  to 
die.  Time  himself  seems  to  have  joined  their  circle,  to  have 
been  infected  with  their  politeness,  and  to  have  absolved 
them,  to  the  furthest  possible  point,  from  the  operation 
of  his  laws.  Voltaire,  d'Argental,  Moncrif,  Renault,  Ma- 
dame d'Egmont,  Madame  du  Deffand  herself — all  were  born 
within  a  few  years  of  each  other,  and  all  lived  to  be  well 
over  eighty,  with  the  full  zest  of  their  activities  unimpaired. 
Pont-de-Veyle,  it  is  true,  died  young — at  the  age  of  seventy- 
seven.  Another  contemporary,  Richelieu,  who  was  famous 
for  his  adventures  while  Louis  XIV.  was  still  on  the  throne, 
lived  till  within  a  year  of  the  opening  of  the  States-General. 
More  typical  still  of  this  singular  and  fortunate  generation 
was  Fontenelle,  who,  one  morning  in  his  hundredth  year, 
quietly  observed  that  he  felt  a  difficulty  in  existing,  and 
forthwith,  even  more  quietly,  ceased  to  do  so. 

Yet,  though  the  wheels  of  life  rolled  round  with  such 
an  alluring  smoothness,  they  did  not  roll  of  themselves;  the 
skill  and  care  of  trained  mechanicians  were  needed  to  keep 
them  going;  and  the  task  was  no  light  one.  Even  Fontenelle 
himself,  fitted  as  he  was  for  it  by  being  blessed  (as  one  of 
his  friends  observed)  with  two  brains  and  no  heart,  realised 
to  the  full  the  hard  conditions  of  social  happiness.  "  II  y  a 
peu  de  choses,"  he  wrote,  "  aussi  difficiles  et  aussi  danger- 
euses  que  le  commerce  des  hommes."    The  sentence,  true 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  91 

for  all  ages,  was  particularly  true  for  his  own.  The  grace- 
ful, easy  motions  of  that  gay  company  were  those  of  dancers 
balanced  on  skates,  gliding,  twirling,  interlacing,  over  the 
thinnest  ice.  Those  drawing-rooms,  those  little  circles,  so 
charming  with  the  familiarity  of  their  privacy,  were  them- 
selves the  rigorous  abodes  of  the  deadliest  kind  of  pubhc 
opinion — the  kind  that  lives  and  glitters  in  a  score  of  pene- 
trating eyes.  They  required  in  their  votaries  the  absolute 
submission  that  reigns  in  religious  orders — the  willing  sac- 
rifice of  the  entire  life.  The  intimacy  of  personal  passion, 
the  intensity  of  high  endeavour — these  things  must  be  left 
behind  and  utterly  cast  away  by  all  who  would  enter  that 
narrow  sanctuary.  Friendship  might  be  allowed  there,  and 
flirtation  disguised  as  love;  but  the  overweening  and  devour- 
ing influence  of  love  itself  should  never  be  admitted  to  de- 
stroy the  calm  of  daily  intercourse  and  absorb  into  a  single 
channel  attentions  due  to  all.  Politics  were  to  be  tolerated, 
so  long  as  they  remained  a  game;  so  soon  as  they  grew 
serious  and  envisaged  the  public  good,  they  became  insuffer- 
able. As  for  literature  and  art,  though  they  might  be  ex- 
cellent as  subjects  for  recreation  and  good  talk,  what  could 
be  more  preposterous  than  to  treat  such  trifles  as  if  they 
had  a  value  of  their  own?  Only  one  thing;  and  that  was 
to  indulge,  in  the  day-dreams  of  religion  or  philosophy,  the 
inward  ardours  of  the  soul.  Indeed,  the  scepticism  of  that 
generation  was  the  most  uncompromising  that  the  world 
has  known;  for  it  did  not  even  trouble  to  deny:  it  simply 
ignored.  It  presented  a  blank  wall  of  perfect  indifference 
alike  to  the  mysteries  of  the  universe  and  to  the  solutions 
of  them.    Madame  du  Deffand  gave  early  proof  that  she 


92  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

shared  to  the  full  this  propensity  of  her  age.  While  still 
a  young  girl  in  a  convent  school,  she  had  shrugged  her 
shoulders  when  the  nuns  began  to  instruct  her  in  the  articles 
of  their  faith.  The  matter  was  considered  serious,  and  the 
great  Massillon,  then  at  the  height  of  his  fame  as  a  preacher 
and  a  healer  of  souls,  was  sent  for  to  deal  with  the  youthful 
heretic.  She  was  not  impressed  by  his  arguments.  In  his 
person  the  generous  fervour  and  the  massive  piety  of  an 
age  that  could  still  believe  felt  the  icy  and  disintegrating 
touch  of  a  new  and  strange  indifference.  "  Mais  qu'elle  est 
jolie!  "  he  murmured  as  he  came  away.  The  Abbess  ran 
forward  to  ask  what  holy  books  he  recommended.  "  Give 
her  a  threepermy  Catechism"  was  Massillon 's  reply.  He 
had  seen  that  the  case  was  hopeless. 

An  innate  scepticism,  a  profound  levity,  an  antipathy  to 
enthusiasm  that  wavered  between  laughter  and  disgust,  com- 
bined with  an  unswerving  devotion  to  the  exacting  and 
arduous  ideals  of  social  intercourse — such  were  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  brilliant  group  of  men  and  women  who  had 
spent  their  youth  at  the  Court  of  the  Regent,  and  dallied 
out  their  middle  age  down  the  long  avenues  of  Sceaux. 
About  the  middle  of  the  century  the  Duchesse  du  Maine 
died,  and  Madame  du  Deffand  established  herself  in  Paris 
at  the  Convent  of  Saint  Joseph  in  a  set  of  rooms  which 
still  showed  traces — in  the  emblazoned  arms  over  the  great 
mantelpiece — of  the  occupation  of  Madame  de  Montespan. 
A  few  years  later  a  physical  affliction  overtook  her:  at  the 
age  of  fifty-seven  she  became  totally  blind;  and  this  misfor- 
tune placed  her,  almost  without  a  transition,  among  the 
ranks  of  the  old.    For  the  rest  of  her  life  she  hardly  moved 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  93 

from  her  drawing-room,  which  speedily  became  the  most 
celebrated  in  Europe.  The  thirty  years  of  her  reign  there 
fall  into  two  distinct  and  almost  equal  parts.  The  first, 
during  which  d'Alembert  was  pre-eminent,  came  to  an  end 
with  the  violent  expulsion  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse. 
During  the  second,  which  lasted  for  the  rest  of  her  life, 
her  salon,  purged  of  the  Encyclopaedists,  took  on  a  more 
decidedly  worldly  tone;  and  the  influence  of  Horace  Wal- 
pole  was  supreme. 

It  is  this  final  period  of  Madame  du  Deffand's  life  that 
is  reflected  so  minutely  in  the  famous  correspondence  which 
the  labours  of  Mrs.  Toynbee  have  now  presented  to  us  for 
the  first  time  in  its  entirety.  Her  letters  to  Walpole  form 
in  effect  a  continuous  journal  covering  the  space  of  fifteen 
years  (i  766-1 780).  They  allow  us,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
trace  through  all  its  developments  the  progress  of  an  ex- 
traordinary passion,  and  on  the  other  to  examine,  as  it 
were  under  the  microscope  of  perhaps  the  bitterest  per- 
spicacity on  record,  the  last  phase  of  a  doomed  society.  For 
the  circle  which  came  together  in  her  drawing-room  during 
those  years  had  the  hand  of  death  upon  it.  The  future 
lay  elsewhere;  it  was  simply  the  past  that  survived  there — 
in  the  rich  trappings  of  fashion  and  wit  and  elaborate  gaiety 
— but  still  irrevocably  the  past.  The  radiant  creatures  of 
Sceaux  had  fallen  into  the  yellow  leaf.  We  see  them  in 
these  letters,  a  collection  of  elderly  persons  tr)dng  hard  to 
amuse  themselves,  and  not  succeeding  very  well.  Pont-de- 
Veyle,  the  youthful  septuagenarian,  did  perhaps  succeed;  for 
he  never  noticed  what  a  bore  he  was  becoming  with  his  per- 
petual cough,  and  continued  to  go  the  rounds  with  inde- 


94  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

fatigable  animation,  until  one  day  his  cough  was  heard  no 
more.  Renault — once  notorious  for  his  dinner-parties,  and 
for  having  written  an  historical  treatise — which,  it  is  true, 
was  worthless,  but  he  had  written  it — ^Renault  was  begin- 
ning to  dodder,  and  Voltaire,  grinning  in  Ferney,  had  already 
dubbed  him  "  notre  delabre  President."  Various  dowagers 
were  engaged  upon  various  vanities.  The  Marquise  de 
Boufflers  was  gambling  herself  to  ruin;  the  Comtesse  de 
Boufflers  was  wringing  out  the  last  drops  of  her  reputation 
as  the  mistress  of  a  Royal  Prince ;  the  Marechale  de  Mirepoix 
was  involved  in  shady  politics;  the  Marechale  de  Luxem- 
bourg was  obliterating  a  highly  dubious  past  by  a  scrupulous 
attention  to  "  bon  ton,"  of  which,  at  last,  she  became  the 
arbitress:  "Quel  ton!  Quel  effroyable  ton!  "  she  is  said 
to  have  exclaimed  after  a  shuddering  glance  at  the  Bible; 
"  ah,  Madame,  quel  dommage  que  le  Saint  Esprit  eut  aussi 
peu  de  gout!  "  Then  there  was  the  floating  company  of 
foreign  diplomats,  some  of  whom  were  invariably  to  be 
found  at  Madame  du  Deffand's:  Caraccioli,  for  instance,  the 
Neapolitan  Ambassador — "je  perds  les  trois  quarts  de  ce 
qu'il  dit,"  she  wrote,  "  mais  comme  il  en  dit  beaucoup,  on 
pent  supporter  cette  perte";  and  Bernstorff,  the  Danish 
envoy,  who  became  the  fashion,  was  lauded  to  the  skies  for 
his  wit  and  fine  manners,  until,  says  the  malicious  lady, 
"  a  travers  tous  ces  eloges,  je  m'avisai  de  I'appeler  Puffen- 
dorf,"  and  Puffendorf  the  poor  man  remained  for  evermore. 
Besides  the  diplomats,  nearly  every  foreign  traveller  of 
distinction  found  his  way  to  the  renowned  salon;  English- 
men were  particularly  frequent  visitors;  and  among  the 
familiar  figures  of  whom  we  catch  more  than  one  glimpse 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  95 

in  the  letters  to  Walpole  are  Burke,  Fox  and  Gibbon.  Some- 
times influential  parents  in  England  obtained  leave  for  their 
young  sons  to  be  admitted  into  the  centre  of  Parisian  re- 
finement. The  English  cub,  fresh  from  Eton,  was  introduced 
by  his  tutor  into  the  red  and  yellow  drawing-room,  where 
the  great  circle  of  a  dozen  or  more  elderly  important  per- 
sons, glittering  in  jewels  and  orders,  pompous  in  powder 
and  rouge,  ranged  in  rigid  order  round  the  fireplace,  fol- 
lowed with  the  precision  of  a  perfect  orchestra  the  leading 
word  or  smile  or  nod  of  an  ancient  Sybil,  who  seemed  to 
survey  the  company  with  her  eyes  shut,  from  a  vast  chair 
by  the  wall.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  scene,  in  all  its  terrify- 
ing politeness.  Madame  du  Deffand  could  not  tolerate  young 
people;  she  declared  that  she  did  not  know  what  to  say.  to 
them;  and  they,  no  doubt,  were  in  precisely  the  same  diffi- 
culty. To  an  English  youth,  unfamiliar  with  the  language 
and  shy  as  only  English  youths  can  be,  a  conversation  with 
that  redoubtable  old  lady  must  have  been  a  grim  ordeal 
indeed.  One  can  almost  hear  the  stumbling,  pointless  ob- 
servations, almost  see  the  imploring  looks  cast,  from  among 
the  infinitely  attentive  company,  towards  the  tutor,  and 
the  pink  ears  growing  still  more  pink. 
<  But  such  awkward  moments  were  rare.  As  a  rule  the 
days  flowed  on  in  easy  monotony — or  rather,  not  the  days, 
but  the  nights.  For  Madame  du  Deffand  rarely  rose  till 
five  o'clock  in  the  evening;  at  six  she  began  her  reception; 
and  at  nine  or  half-past  the  central  moment  of  the  twenty- 
four  hours  arrived — the  moment  of  supper.  Upon  this  event 
the  whole  of  her  existence  hinged.  Supper,  she  used  to 
say,  was  one  of  the  four  ends  of  man,  and  what  the  other 


96  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

three  were  she  could  never  remember.  She  lived  up  to  her 
dictum.  She  had  an  income  of  £1400  a  year,  and  of  this 
she  spent  more  than  half — £720 — on  food.  These  figures 
should  be  largely  increased  to  give  them  their  modern  values; 
but,  economise  as  she  might,  she  found  that  she  could  only 
just  manage  to  rub  along.  Her  parties  varied  considerably 
in  size;  sometimes  only  four  or  five  persons  sat  down  to 
supper — sometimes  twenty  or  thirty.  No  doubt  they  were 
elaborate  meals.  In  a  moment  of  economy  we  find  the 
hospitable  lady  making  pious  resolutions:  she  would  no 
longer  give  "  des  repas  " — only  ordinary  suppers  for  six 
people  at  the  most,  at  which  there  should  be  served  nothing 
more  than  two  entrees,  one  roast^  two  sweets,  and — mys- 
terious addition — "  la  piece  du  milieu."  This  was  certainly 
moderate  for  those  days  (Monsieur  de  Jonsac  rarely  pro- 
vided fewer  than  fourteen  entrees),  but  such  resolutions 
did  not  last  long.  A  week  later  she  would  suddenly  begin 
to  issue  invitations  wildly,  and,  day  after  day,  her  tables 
would  be  loaded  with  provisions  for  thirty  guests.  But  she 
did  not  always  have  supper  at  home.  From  time  to  time 
she  sallied  forth  in  her  vast  coach  and  rattled  through  the 
streets  of  Paris  to  one  of  her  still  extant  dowagers — a 
Marechale,  or  a  Duchesse — or  the  more  and  more  "  delabre 
President."  There  the  same  company  awaited  her  as  that 
which  met  in  her  own  house;  it  was  simply  a  change  of 
decorations;  often  enough  for  weeks  together  she  had  supper 
every  night  with  the  same  half-dozen  persons.  The  enter- 
tainment, apart  from  the  supper  itself,  hardly  varied.  Occa- 
sionally there  was  a  little  music,  more  often  there  were 
cards  and  gambling.     Madame  du  Deffand  disliked  gam- 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  97 

bling,  but  she  loathed  going  to  bed,  and,  if  it  came  to  a 
choice  between  the  two,  she  did  not  hesitate:  once,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-three,  she  sat  up  till  seven  o'clock  in  the 
morning  playing  vingt-et-un  with  Charles  Fox.  But  distrac- 
tions of  that  kind  were  merely  incidental  to  the  grand 
business  of  the  night — the  conversation.  In  the  circle  that, 
after  an  eight  hours'  sitting,  broke  up  reluctantly  at  two 
or  three  every  morning  to  meet  again  that  same  evening 
at  six,  talk  continually  flowed.  For  those  strange  creatures 
it  seemed  to  form  the  very  substance  of  life  itself.  It  was 
the  underlying  essence,  the  circumambient  ether,  in  which 
alone  the  pulsations  of  existence  had  their  being;  it  was  the 
one  eternal  reality;  men  might  come  and  men  might  go, 
but  talk  went  on  for  ever.  It  is  difficult,  especially  for 
those  born  under  the  Saturnine  influence  of  an  English  sky, 
quite  to  realise  the  nature  of  such  conversation.  Brilliant, 
charming,  easy-flowing,  gay  and  rapid  it  must  have  been; 
never  profound,  never  intimate,  never  thrilling;  but  also 
never  emphatic,  never  affected,  never  languishing,  and  never 
dull.  Madame  du  Deffand  herself  had  a  most  vigorous  flow 
of  language.  "Ecoutez!  Ecoutez!  "  Walpole  used  con- 
stantly to  exclaim,  trying  to  get  in  his  points;  but  in  vain; 
the  sparkling  cataract  swept  on  unheeding.  And  indeed 
to  listen  was  the  wiser  part — to  drink  in  deliciously  the  ani- 
mation of  those  quick,  illimitable,  exquisitely  articulated 
syllables,  to  surrender  one's  whole  soul  to  the  pure  and 
penetrating  precision  of  those  phrases,  to  follow  without  a 
breath  the  happy  swiftness  of  that  fine-spun  thread  of 
thought.  Then  at  moments  her  wit  crystallised;  the  cataract 
threw  off  a  shower  of  radiant  jewels,  which  one  caught  as 


98  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

one  might.  Some  of  these  have  come  down  to  us.  Her 
remark  on  Montesquieu's  great  book — "  C'est  de  I'esprit 
sur  les  lois  " — is  an  almost  final  criticism.  Her  famous 
"  mot  de  Saint  Denis,"  so  dear  to  the  heart  of  Voltaire, 
deserves  to  be  once  more  recorded.  A  garrulous  and  credu- 
lous Cardinal  was  describing  the  martyrdom  of  Saint  Denis 
the  Areopagite:  when  his  head  was  cut  off,  he  took  it  up 
and  carried  it  in  his  hands.  That,  said  the  Cardinal,  was 
well  known;  what  was  not  well  known  was  the  extraordinary 
fact  that  he  walked  with  his  head  under  his  arm  all  the 
way  from  Montmartre  to  the  Church  of  Saint  Denis — a 
distance  of  six  miles.  "Ah,  Monseigneur!  "  said  Madame 
du  Deffand,  "  dans  une  telle  situation,  il  n'y  a  que  le  premier 
pas  qui  coute."  At  two  o'clock  the  brilliance  began  to  flag; 
the  guests  began  to  go;  the  dreadful  moment  was  approach- 
ing. If  Madame  de  Gramont  happened  to  be  there,  there 
was  still  some  hope,  for  Madame  de  Gramont  abhorred  going 
to  bed  almost  as  much  as  Madame  du  Deffand.  Or  there 
was  just  a  chance  that  the  Due  de  Choiseul  might  come  in 
at  the  last  moment,  and  stay  on  for  a  couple  of  hours.  But 
at  length  it  was  impossible  to  hesitate  any  longer;  the  chariot 
was  at  the  door.  She  swept  off,  but  it  was  still  early;  it 
was  only  half-past  three;  and  the  coachman  was  ordered 
to  drive  about  the  Boulevards  for  an  hour  before  going 
home. 

It  was,  after  all,  only  natural  that  she  should  put  off 
going  to  bed,  for  she  rarely  slept  for  more  than  two  or 
three  hours.  The  greater  part  of  that  empty  time,  during 
which  conversation  was  impossible,  she  devoted  to  her  books. 
But  she  hardly  ever  found  anything  to  read  that  she  really 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  99 

enjoyed.  Of  the  two  thousand  volumes  she  possessed — all 
bound  alike,  and  stamped  on  the  back  with  her  device  of  a 
cat — she  had  only  read  four  or  five  hundred;  the  rest  were 
impossible.  She  perpetually  complained  to  Walpole  of  the 
extreme  dearth  of  reading  matter.  In  nothing,  indeed,  is 
the  contrast  more  marked  between  that  age  and  ours  than 
in  the  quantity  of  books  available  for  the  ordinary  reader. 
How  the  eighteenth  century  would  envy  us  our  innumerable 
novels,  our  biographies,  our  books  of  travel,  all  our  easy 
approaches  to  knowledge  and  entertainment,  our  transla- 
tions, our  cheap  reprints!  In  those  days,  even  for  a  reader 
of  catholic  tastes,  there  was  really  very  little  to  read.  And, 
of  course,  Madame  du  Deffand's  tastes  were  far  from  catho- 
lic— they  were  fastidious  to  the  last  degree.  She  consid- 
ered that  Racine  alone  of  writers  had  reached  perfection,  and 
that  only  once — in  Athalie.  Corneille  carried  her  away 
for  moments,  but  on  the  whole  he  was  barbarous.  She 
highly  admired  "  quelques  certaines  de  vers  de  M.  de 
Voltaire."  She  thought  Richardson  and  Fielding  excellent, 
and  she  was  enraptured  by  the  style — but  only  by  the  style 
— of  Gil  Bias.  And  that  was  all.  Everything  else  appeared 
to  her  either  affected  or  pedantic  or  insipid.  Walpole  rec- 
ommended to  her  a  History  of  Malta;  she  tried  it,  but  she 
soon  gave  it  up — it  mentioned  the  Crusades.  She  began 
Gibbon,  but  she  found  him  superficial.  She  tried  Buffon, 
but  he  was  "d'une  monotonie  insupportable;  il  salt  bien 
ce  qu'il  salt,  mais  il  ne  s'occupe  que  des  betes;  il  faut  I'etre 
un  peu  soi-meme  pour  se  devouer  k  une  telle  occupation." 
She  got  hold  of  the  memoirs  of  Saint-Simon  in  manuscript, 
and  these  amused  her  enormously;  but  she  was  so  disgusted 


lOO  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

by  the  style  that  she  was  very  nearly  sick.  At  last,  in 
despair,  she  embarked  on  a  prose  translation  of  Shakespeare. 
The  result  was  unexpected;  she  was  positively  pleased. 
Coriolanus,  it  is  true,  "  me  semble,  sauf  votre  respect, 
epouvantable,  et  n'a  pas  le  sens  commun  ";  and  "  pour  La 
Tempete,  je  ne  suis  pas  touchee  de  ce  genre."  But  she 
was  impressed  by  Othello;  she  was  interested  by  Macbeth; 
and  she  admired  Julius  Ccssar,  in  spite  of  its  bad  taste. 
At  King  Lear,  indeed,  she  had  to  draw  the  line.  "  Ah, 
mon  Dieu !  Quelle  piece !  Reellement  la  trouvez-vous  belle? 
Elle  me  noircit  I'ame  h.  un  point  que  je  ne  puis  exprimer; 
c'est  un  amas  de  toutes  les  horreurs  in  females."  Her  reader 
was  an  old  soldier  from  the  Invalides,  who  came  round  every 
morning  early,  and  took  up  his  position  by  her  bedside. 
She  lay  back  among  the  cushions,  listening,  for  long  hours. 
Was  there  ever  a  more  incongruous  company,  a  queerer 
trysting-place,  for  Goner il  and  Desdemona,  Ariel  and  Lady 
Macbeth? 

Often,  even  before  the  arrival  of  the  old  pensioner,  she 
was  at  work  dictating  a  letter,  usually  to  Horace  Walpole, 
occasionally  to  Madame  de  Choiseul  or  Voltaire.  Her  letters 
tp  Voltaire  are  enchanting;  his  replies  are  no  less  so;  and 
it  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  the  whole  correspondence 
has  never  been  collected  together  in  chronological  order,  and 
published  as  a  separate  book.  The  slim  volume  would  be, 
of  its  kind,  quite  perfect.  There  was  no  love  lost  between 
the  two  old  friends;  they  could  not  understand  each  other; 
Voltaire,  alone  of  his  generation,  had  thrown  himself  into 
the  very  vanguard  of  thought;  to  Madame  du  Deffand  prog- 
ress had  no  meaning,  and  thought  itself  was  hardly  more 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  loi 

than  an  unpleasant  necessity.  She  distrusted  him  pro- 
foundly, and  he  returned  the  compliment.  Yet  neither  could 
do  without  the  other:  through  her,  he  kept  in  touch  with 
one  of  the  most  influential  circles  in  Paris;  and  even  she 
could  not  be  insensible  to  the  glory  of  corresponding  with 
such  a  man.  Besides,  in  spite  of  all  their  differences,  they 
admired  each  other  genuinely,  and  they  were  held  together 
by  the  habit  of  a  long  familiarity.  The  result  was  a  mar- 
vellous display  of  epistolary  art.  If  they  had  liked  each 
other  any  better,  they  never  would  have  troubled  to  write  so 
well.  They  were  on  their  best  behaviour — exquisitely  cour- 
teous and  yet  punctiliously  at  ease,  like  dancers  in  a  minuet. 
His  cajoleries  are  infinite;  his  deft  sentences,  mingling  flat- 
tery with  reflection,  have  almost  the  quality  of  a  caress. 
She  replies  in  the  tone  of  a  worshipper,  glancing  lightly 
at  a  hundred  subjects,  purring  out  her  "  Monsieur  de  Vol- 
taire," and  seeking  his  advice  on  literature  and  life.  He 
rejoins  in  that  wonderful  strain  of  epicurean  stoicism  of 
which  he  alone  possessed  the  secret:  and  so  the  letters  go 
on.  Sometimes  one  just  catches  the  glimpse  of  a  claw  be- 
neath the  soft  pad,  a  grimace  under  the  smile  of  elegance; 
and  one  remembers  with  a  shock  that,  after  all,  one  is  read- 
ing the  correspondence  of  a  monkey  and  a  cat. 

Madame  du  Deffand's  style  reflects,  perhaps  even  more 
completely  than  that  of  Voltaire  himself,  the  common-sense 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  Its  precision  is  absolute.  It  is 
like  a  line  drawn  in  one  stroke  by  a  master,  with  the  prompt 
exactitude  of  an  unerring  subtlety.  There  is  no  breadth  in 
it — no  sense  of  colour  and  the  concrete  mass  of  things. 
One  cannot  wonder,  as  one  reads  her,  that  she  hardly  re- 


I02  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

gretted  her  blindness.    What  did  she  lose  by  it?    Certainly 

not 

The  sweet  approach  of  even  or  morn, 

Or  sight  of  vernal  bloom,  or  Summer's  rose; 

for  what  did  she  care  for  such  particulars  when  her  eyes 
were  at  their  clearest?  Her  perception  was  intellectual; 
and  to  the  penetrating  glances  of  her  mental  vision  the 
objects  of  the  sensual  world  were  mere  irrelevance.  The 
kind  of  writing  produced  by  such  a  quality  of  mind  may 
seem  thin  and  barren  to  those  accustomed  to  the  wealth 
and  variety  of  the  Romantic  school.  Yet  it  will  repay 
attention.  The  vocabulary  is  very  small;  but  every  word 
is  the  right  one;  this  old  lady  of  high  society,  who  had 
never  given  a  thought  to  her  style,  who  wrote — and  spelt — 
by  the  light  of  nature,  was  a  past  mistress  of  that  most 
difficult  of  literary  accomplishments — "  Part  de  dire  en  un 
mot  tout  ce  qu'un  mot  pent  dire."  The  object  of  all  art 
is  to  make  suggestions.  The  romantic  artist  attains  that 
end  by  using  a  multitude  of  different  stimuli,  by  calling  up 
image  after  image,  recollection  after  recollection,  until  the 
reader's  mind  is  filled  and  held  by  a  vivid  and  palpable  evoca- 
tion; the  classic  works  by  the  contrary  method  of  a  fine 
economy,  and,  ignoring  everything  but  what  is  essential, 
trusts,  by  means  of  the  exact  propriety  of  his  presentation, 
to  produce  the  required  effect.  Madame  du  Deffand  carries 
the  classical  ideal  to  its  furthest  point.  She  never  strikes 
more  than  once,  and  she  always  hits  the  nail  on  the  head. 
Such  is  her  skill  that  she  sometimes  seems  to  beat  the  Ro- 
mantics even  on  their  own  ground:  her  reticences  make  a 
deeper  impression  than  all  the  dottings  of  their  Vs.    The 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  103 

following  passage  from  a  letter  to  Walpole  is  characteristic: 

Nous  eumes  une  musique  charmante,  una  dame  qui  joue  de  la 
harpe  a  merveille;  elle  me  fit  tant  de  plaisir  que  j'eus  du  regret 
que  vous  ne  I'entendissiez  pas;  c'est  un  instrument  admirable. 
Nous  eumes  aussi  un  clavecin,  mais  quoiqu'il  fut  touche  avec  ime 
grande  perfection,  ce  n'est  rien  en  comparaison  de  la  harpe.  Je 
fus  fort  triste  toute  la  soiree;  j'avais  appris  en  partant  que  M"*®. 
de  Luxembourg,  qui  etait  allee  samedi  a  Montmorency  pour  y 
passer  quinze  jours,  s'etait  trouvee  si  mal  qu'on  avait  fait  venir 
Tronchin,  et  qu'on  I'avait  ramenee  le  dimanche  a  huit  heures  du 
soir,  qu'on  lui  croyait  de  I'eau  dans  la  poitrine.  L'anciennete 
de  la  connaissance ;  une  habitude  qui  a  I'air  de  I'amitie;  voir 
disparaitre  ceux  avec  qui  Ton  vit;  un  retour  sur  soi-memc;  sentir 
que  Ton  ne  tient  a  rien,  que  tout  fuit,  que  tout  echappe,  qu'on 
reste  seule  dans  I'univers,  et  que  malgre  cela  on  craint  de  le 
quitter,  voila  ce  qui  m'occupa  pendant  la  musique. 

Here  are  no  coloured  words,  no  fine  phrases — only  the  most 
flat  and  ordinary  expressions — "  un  instrument  admirable  " 
— "  une  grande  perfection  " — "  fort  triste."  Nothing  is  de- 
scribed; and  yet  how  much  is  suggested!  The  whole  scene 
is  conjured  up — one  does  not  know  how;  one's  imagination 
is  switched  on  to  the  right  rails,  as  it  were,  by  a  look,  by 
a  gesture,  and  then  left  to  run  of  itself.  In  the  simple, 
faultless  rhythm  of  that  closing  sentence,  the  trembling  mel- 
ancholy of  the  old  harp  seems  to  be  lingering  still. 

While  the  letters  to  Voltaire  show  us  nothing  but  the  bril- 
liant exterior  of  Madame  du  Deffand's  mind,  those  to  Wal- 
pole reveal  the  whole  state  of  her  soul.  The  revelation 
is  not  a  pretty  one.  Bitterness,  discontent,  pessimism,  C5nii- 
cism,  boredom,  regret,  despair — these  are  the  feelings  that 
dominate  every  page.  To  a  superficial  observer  Madame 
du  Deffand's  lot  must  have  seemed  peculiarly  enviable;^ 


104  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

she  was  well  off,  she  enjoyed  the  highest  consideration,  she 
possessed  intellectual  talents  of  the  rarest  kind  which  she 
had  every  opportunity  of  displaying,  and  she  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  multitude  of  friends.  What  more  could  any 
one  desire?  The  harsh  old  woman  would  have  smiled  grimly 
at  such  a  question.  "A  little  appetite,"  she  might  have 
answered.  She  was  like  a  dyspeptic  at  a  feast;  the  finer  the 
dishes  that  were  set  before  her,  the  greater  her  distaste; 
that  spiritual  gusto  which  lends  a  savour  to  the  meanest 
act  of  living,  and  without  which  all  life  seems  profitless, 
had  gone  from  her  for  ever.  Yet — and  this  intensified  her 
wretchedness — though  the  banquet  was  loathsome  to  her, 
she  had  not  the  strength  to  tear  herself  away  from  the 
table.  Once,  in  a  moment  of  desperation,  she  had  thoughts 
of  retiring  to  a  convent,  but  she  soon  realised  that  such  an 
action  was  out  of  the  question.  Fate  had  put  her  into  the 
midst  of  the  world,  and  there  she  must  remain.  "  Je  ne 
suis  point  assez  heureuse,"  she  said,  "  de  me  passer  des 
choses  dont  je  ne  me  soucie  pas."  She  was  extremely 
lonely.  As  fastidious  in  friendship  as  in  literature,  she 
passed  her  life  among  a  crowd  of  persons  whom  she  disliked 
and  despised.  "Je  ne  vois  que  des  sots  et  des  fripons," 
she  said;  and  she  did  not  know  which  were  the  most  dis- 
gusting. She  took  a  kind  of  deadly  pleasure  in  analysing 
"  les  nuances  des  sottises  "  among  the  people  with  whom 
she  lived.  The  varieties  were  many,  from  the  foolishness 
of  her  companion,  Mademoiselle  Sanadon,  who  would  do 
nothing  but  imitate  her — "  elle  fait  des  definitions,"  she 
wails — to  that  of  the  lady  who  hoped  to  prove  her  friend- 
ship by  unending  presents  of  grapes  and  pears — "comme 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  105 

je  n'y  tate  pas,  cela  diminue  mes  scrupules  du  peu  de  gout 
que  j'ai  pour  elle."  Then  there  were  those  who  were  not 
quite  fools  but  something  very  near  it.  "  Tous  les  Matignon 
sont  des  sots,"  said  somebody  one  day  to  the  Regent, 
"  excepte  le  Marquis  de  Matignon."  "  Cela  est  vrai,"  the 
Regent  replied,  "  il  n'est  pas  sot,  mais  on  volt  bien  qu'il 
est  le  fils  d'un  sot."  Madame  du  Deffand  was  an  expert 
at  tracing  such  affinities.  For  instance,  there  was  Necker. 
It  was  clear  that  Necker  was  not  a  fool,  and  yet — what 
was  it?  Something  was  the  matter — yes,  she  had  it:  he 
made  you  feel  a  fool  yourself — "  I'on  est  plus  bete  avec  lui 
que  Ton  ne  Test  tout  seul."  As  she  said  of  herself:  "elle 
est  tou jours  tentee  d'arracher  les  masques  qu'elle  rencontre." 
Those  blind,  piercing  eyes  of  hers  spied  out  unerringly  the 
weakness  or  the  ill-nature  or  the  absurdity  that  lurked  be- 
hind the  gravest  or  the  most  fascinating  exterior;  then  her 
fingers  began  to  itch,  and  she  could  resist  no  longer — she 
gave  way  to  her  besetting  temptation.  It  is  impossible  not 
to  sympathise  with  Rousseau's  remark  about  her — "  J'aimai 
mieux  encore  m'exposer  au  fleau  de  sa  haine  qu'^  celui  de 
son  amitie."  There,  sitting  in  her  great  Diogenes-tub  of 
an  armchair — her  "  tonneau  "  as  she  called  it — talking, 
smiling,  scattering  her  bons  mots,  she  went  on  through  the 
night,  in  the  remorseless  secrecy  of  her  heart,  tearing  off 
the  masks  from  the  faces  that  surrounded  her.  Sometimes 
the  world  in  which  she  lived  displayed  itself  before  her 
horrified  inward  vision  like  some  intolerable  and  meaning- 
less piece  of  clock-work  mechanism: 

J'admirais  hier   au  soir  la   nombreuse  compagnie  qui   6tait 
chez  moi;  hommes  et  femmes  me  paraissaient  des  machines  it 


io6  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

ressorts,  qui  allaient,  venaient,  parlaient,  riaient,  sans  penser, 
sans  reflechir,  sans  sentir;  chacun  jouait  son  role  par  habitude: 
Madame  la  Duchesse  d'Aiguillon  crevait  de  rire,  M™*.  de  For- 
calquier  dedaignait  tout,  M"^".  de  la  Valliere  jabotait  sur  tout. 
Les  hommes  ne  jouaient  pas  de  meilleurs  roles,  et  moi  j'etais 
abimee  dans  les  reflexions  les  plus  noires;  je  pensai  que  j 'avals 
passe  ma  vie  dans  les  illusions;  que  je  m'etais  creusee  tous  les 
abimes  dans  lesquels  j'etais  tombee. 

At  other  times  she  could  see  around  her  nothing  but  a  mass 
of  mutual  hatreds,  into  which  she  was  plunged  herself  no 
less  than  her  neighbours: 

Je  ramenai  la  Marechale  de  Mirepoix  chez  elle;  j'y  descendis, 
je  causai  une  heure  avec  elle;  je  n'en  fus  pas  mecontente.  Elle 
halt  la  petite  Idole,  elle  hait  la  Marechale  de  Luxembourg;  enfin, 
sa  haine  pour  tous  les  gens  qui  me  deplaisent  me  fit  lui  pardonner 
I'indifference  et  peut-etre  la  haine  qu'elle  a  pour  moi.  Convenez 
que  voila  une  jolie  societe,  un  charmant  commerce. 

Once  or  twice  for  several  months  together  she  thought  that 
she  had  found  in  the  Duchesse  de  Choiseul  a  true  friend  and 
a  perfect  companion.  But  there  was  one  fatal  flaw  even  in 
Madame  de  Choiseul:  she  was  perfect! — "  Elle  est  parfaite; 
et  c'est  un  plus  grand  defaut  qu'on  ne  pense  et  qu'on  ne 
saurait  imaginer."  At  last  one  day  the  inevitable  happened 
— she  went  to  see  Madame  de  Choiseul,  and  she  was  bored. 
"  Je  rentrai  chez  moi  a  une  heure,  penetree,  persuadee  qu'on 
ne  pent  etre  content  de  personne." 

One  person,  however,  there  was  who  pleased  her;  and  it 
was  the  final  irony  of  her  fate  that  this  very  fact  should 
have  been  the  last  drop  that  caused  the  cup  of  her  unhappi- 
ness  to  overflow.  Horace  Walpole  had  come  upon  her  at 
a  psychological  moment.    Her  quarrel  with  Mademoiselle 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  107 

de  Lespinasse  and  the  Encyclopaedists  had  just  occurred;  she 
was  within  a  few  years  of  seventy;  and  it  must  have  seemed 
to  her  that,  after  such  a  break,  at  such  an  age,  there  was 
little  left  for  her  to  do  but  to  die  quietly.  Then  the  gay, 
talented,  fascinating  Englishman  appeared,  and  she  suddenly 
found  that,  so  far  from  her  life  being  over,  she  was  embarked 
for  good  and  all  upon  her  greatest  adventure.  What  she 
experienced  at  that  moment  was  something  like  a  religious 
conversion.  Her  past  fell  away  from  her  a  dead  thing;  she 
was  overwhelmed  by  an  ineffable  vision;  she,  who  had  wan- 
dered for  so  many  years  in  the  ways  of  worldly  indifference, 
was  uplifted  all  at  once  on  to  a  strange  summit,  and  pierced 
with  the  intensest  pangs  of  an  unknown  devotion.  Hence- 
forward her  life  was  dedicated;  but,  unlike  the  happier  saints 
of  a  holier  persuasion,  she  was  to  find  no  peace  on  earth. 
It  was,  indeed,  hardly  to  be  expected  that  Walpole,  a  blase 
bachelor  of  fifty,  should  have  reciprocated  so  singular  a  pas- 
sion; yet  he  might  at  least  have  treated  it  with  gentleness 
and  respect.  The  total  impression  of  him  which  these  letters 
produce  is  very  damaging.  It  is  true  that  he  was  in  a  diffi- 
cult position;  and  it  is  also  true  that,  since  only  the  merest 
fragments  of  his  side  of  the  correspondence  have  been 
preserved,  our  knowledge  of  the  precise  details  of  his  con- 
duct is  incomplete;  nevertheless,  it  is  clear  that,  on  the  whole, 
throughout  the  long  and  painful  episode,  the  principal  mo- 
tive which  actuated  him  was  an  inexcusable  egoism.  He 
was  obsessed  by  a  fear  of  ridicule.  He  knew  that  letters 
were  regularly  opened  at  the  French  Post  Office,  and  he 
lived  in  terror  lest  some  spiteful  story  of  his  absurd  rela- 
tionship with  a  blind  old  woman  of  seventy  should  be  con- 


io8  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

cocted  and  set  afloat  among  his  friends,  or  his  enemies,  in 
England  which  would  make  him  the  laughing-stock  of  soci- 
ety for  the  rest  of  his  days.  He  was  no  less  terrified  by 
the  intensity  of  the  sentiment  of  which  he  had  become  the 
object.  Thoroughly  superficial  and  thoroughly  selfish,  im- 
mersed in  his  London  life  of  dilettantism  and  gossip,  the 
weekly  letters  from  France  with  their  burden  of  a  desperate 
affection  appalled  him  and  bored  him  by  turns.  He  did  not 
know  what  to  do;  and  his  perplexity  was  increased  by  the 
fact  that  he  really  liked  Madame  du  Deffand — so  far  as  he 
could  like  any  one— and  also  by  the  fact  that  his  vanity 
was  highly  flattered  by  her  letters.  Many  courses  were 
open  to  him,  but  the  one  he  took  was  probably  the  most 
cruel  that  he  could  have  taken:  he  insisted  with  an  absolute 
rigidity  on  their  correspondence  being  conducted  in  the  tone 
of  the  most  ordinary  friendship — on  those  terms  alone,  he 
said,  would  he  consent  to  continue  it.  And  of  course  such 
terms  were  impossible  to  Madame  du  Deffand.  She  accepted 
them — what  else  could  she  do? — ^but  every  line  she  wrote 
was  a  denial  of  them.  Then,  periodically,  there  was  an 
explosion.  Walpole  stormed,  threatened,  declared  he  would 
write  no  more;  and  on  her  side  there  were  abject  apologies, 
and  solemn  promises  of  amendment.  Naturally,  it  was  all 
in  vain.  A  few  months  later  he  would  be  attacked  by  a 
fit  of  the  gout,  her  solicitude  would  be  too  exaggerated,  and 
the  same  fury  was  repeated,  and  the  same  submission.  One 
wonders  what  the  charm  could  have  been  that  held  that 
proud  old  spirit  in  such  a  miserable  captivity.  Was  it  his 
very  coldness  that  subdued  her?  If  he  had  cared  for  her 
a  little  more,  perhaps  she  would  have  cared  for  him  a  good 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  109 

deal  less.  But  it  is  clear  that  what  really  bound  her  to  him 
was  the  fact  that  they  so  rarely  met.  If  he  had  lived  in 
Paris,  if  he  had  been  a  member  of  her  little  clique,  subject 
to  the  unceasing  searchlight  of  her  nightly  scrutiny,  who  can 
doubt  that,  sooner  or  later,  Walpole  too  would  have  felt  "  le 
fleau  de  son  amitie  "?  His  mask  too  would  have  been  torn 
to  tatters  like  the  rest.  But,  as  it  was,  his  absence  saved 
him;  her  imagination  clothed  him  with  an  almost  mythic 
excellence;  his  brilliant  letters  added  to  the  impression;  and 
then,  at  intervals  of  about  two  years,  he  appeared  in  Paris 
for  six  weeks — ^just  long  enough  to  rivet  her  chains,  and 
not  long  enough  to  loosen  them.  And  so  it  was  that  she 
fell  before  him  with  that  absolute  and  unquestioning  devo- 
tion of  which  only  the  most  dominating  and  fastidious 
natures  are  capable.  Once  or  twice,  indeed,  she  did  attempt 
a  revolt,  but  only  succeeded  in  plunging  herself  into  a  deeper 
subjection.  After  one  of  his  most  violent  and  cruel  out- 
bursts, she  refused  to  communicate  with  him  further,  and 
for  three  or  four  weeks  she  kept  her  word;  then  she  crept 
back  and  pleaded  for  forgiveness.  Walpole  graciously 
granted  it.  It  is  with  some  satisfaction  that  one  finds  him, 
a  few  weeks  later,  laid  up  with  a  peculiarly  painful  attack 
of  the  gout. 

About  half-way  through  the  correspondence  there  is  an 
acute  crisis,  after  which  the  tone  of  the  letters  undergoes 
a  marked  change.  After  seven  years  of  struggle,  Madame 
du  Deffand's  indomitable  spirit  was  broken;  henceforward 
she  would  hope  for  nothing;  she  would  gratefully  accept 
the  few  crumbs  that  might  be  thrown  her;  and  for  the  rest 
she  resigned  herself  to  her  fate.     Gradually  sinking  into 


no  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

extreme  old  age,  her  self-repression  and  her  bitterness  grew 
ever  more  and  more  complete.  She  was  always  bored;  and 
her  later  letters  are  a  series  of  variations  on  the  perpetual 
theme  of  "  ennui."  "  C'est  une  maladie  de  Tame,"  she  says, 
"  dont  nous  afflige  la  nature  en  nous  donnant  I'existence; 
c'est  le  ver  solitaire  qui  absorbe  tout."  And  again,  "  I'ennui 
est  Pavant-gout  du  neant,  mais  le  neant  lui  est  preferable." 
Her  existence  had  become  a  hateful  waste — a  garden,  she 
said,  from  which  all  the  flowers  had  been  uprooted  and 
which  had  been  sown  with  salt.  "Ah!  Je  le  repete  sans 
cesse,  il  n'y  a  qu'un  malheur,  celui  d'etre  ne."  The  grass- 
hopper had  become  a  burden;  and  yet  death  seemed  as 
little  desirable  as  life.  "  Comment  est-il  possiblej"  she  asks, 
"  qu'on  craigne  la  fin  d'une  vie  aussi  triste?  "  When  Death 
did  come  at  last,  he  came  very  gently.  She  felt  his  ap- 
proaches, and  dictated  a  letter  to  Walpole,  bidding  him,  in 
her  strange  fashion,  an  infinitely  restrained  farewell :  "Diver- 
tissez-vous,  mon  ami,  le  plus  que  vous  pourrez;  ne  vous 
afHigez  point  de  mon  etat,  nous  etions  presque  perdus  I'un 
pour  I'autre;  nous  ne  nous  devious  jamais  revoir;  vous  me 
regretterez,  parce  qu'on  est  bien  aise  de  se  savoir  aime." 
That  was  her  last  word  to  him.  Walpole  might  have  reached 
her  before  she  finally  lost  consciousness,  but,  though  he 
realised  her  condition  and  knew  well  enough  what  his  pres- 
ence would  have  been  to  her,  he  did  not  trouble  to  move. 
She  died  as  she  had  lived — ^her  room  crowded  with  ac- 
quaintances and  the  sound  of  a  conversation  in  her  ears. 
When  one  reflects  upon  her  extraordinary  tragedy,  when  one 
attempts  to  gauge  the  significance  of  her  character  and  of 
her  life,  it  is  difficult  to  know  whether  to  pity  most,  to  ad- 


MADAME  DU  DEFFAND  iii 

mire,  or  to  fear.  Certainly  there  is  something  at  once  pitiable 
and  magnificent  in  such  an  unflinching  perception  of  the 
futilities  of  living,  such  an  uncompromising  refusal  to  be 
content  with  anything  save  the  one  thing  that  it  is  impossible 
to  have.  But  there  is  something  alarming  too;  was  she  per- 
haps right  after  all? 

1913. 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND ' 

The  visit  of  Voltaire  to  England  marks  a  turning-point  in 
the  history  of  civilisation.  It  was  the  first  step  in  a  long 
process  of  interaction — big  with  momentous  consequences — 
between  the  French  and  English  cultures.  For  centuries  the 
combined  forces  of  mutual  ignorance  and  political  hostility 
had  kept  the  two  nations  apart:  Voltaire  planted  a  small 
seed  of  friendship  which,  in  spite  of  a  thousand  hostile  in- 
fluences, grew  and  flourished  mightily.  The  seed,  no  doubt, 
fell  on  good  ground,  and  no  doubt,  if  Voltaire  had  never  left 
his  native  country,  some  chance  wind  would  have  carried  it 
over  the  narrow  seas,  so  that  history  in  the  main  would  have 
been  unaltered.  But  actually  his  was  the  hand  which  did  the 
work. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  our  knowledge  of  so  important  a 
period  in  Voltaire's  life  should  be  extremely  incomplete. 
Carlyle,  who  gave  a  hasty  glance  at  it  in  his  life  of  Frederick, 
declared  that  he  could  find  nothing  but  "  mere  inanity  and 
darkness  visible  ";  and  since  Carlyle's  day  the  progress  has 
been  small.  A  short  chapter  in  Desnoiresterres'  long  Biog- 
raphy and  an  essay  by  Churton  Collins  did  something  to  co- 
ordinate the  few  known  facts.  Another  step  was  taken  a  few 
years  ago  with  the  publication  of  M.  Lanson's  elaborate  and 
exhaustive  edition  of  the  Lettres  Philosophiques,  the  work  in 

*  Correspondance  de  Voltaire  (1726-1729).  By  Lucien  Foulet  Paris: 
Hachette,  1913. 

115 


ii6  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

which  Voltaire  gave  to  the  world  the  distilled  essence  of  his 
English  experiences.  And  now  M.  Lucien  Foulet  has 
brought  together  all  the  extant  letters  concerning  the  period, 
which  he  has  collated  with  scrupulous  exactitude  and  to 
which  he  has  added  a  series  of  valuable  appendices  upon 
various  obscure  and  disputed  points.  M.  Lanson's  great  at- 
tainments are  well  known,  and  to  say  that  M.  Foulet's  work 
may  fitly  rank  as  a  supplementary  volume  to  the  edition  of 
the  Lettres  Philosophiques  is  simply  to  say  that  he  is  a 
worthy  follower  of  that  noble  tradition  of  profound  research 
and  perfect  lucidity  which  has  made  French  scholarship  one 
of  the  glories  of  European  culture. 

Upon  the  events  in  particular  which  led  up  to  Voltaire's 
departure  for  England,  M.  Foulet  has  been  able  to  throw 
consideral)le  light.  The  story,  as  revealed  by  the  letters  of 
contemporary  observers  and  the  official  documents  of  the 
police,  is  an  instructive  and  curious  one.  In  the  early  days 
of  January  1726  Voltaire,  who  was  thirty-one  years  of  age, 
occupied  a  position  which,  so  far  as  could  be  seen  upon  the 
surface,  could  hardly  have  been  more  fortunate.  He  was 
recognised  ever5rwhere  as  the  rising  poet  of  the  day;  he  was 
a  successful  dramatist;  he  was  a  friend  of  Madame  de  Prie, 
who  was  all-powerful  at  Court,  and  his  talents  had  been  re- 
warded by  a  pension  from  the  royal  purse.  His  brilliance, 
his  gaiety,  his  extraordinary  capacity  for  being  agreeable 
had  made  him  the  pet  of  the  narrow  and  aristocratic  circle 
which  dominated  France.  Dropping  his  middle-class  ante- 
cedents as  completely  as  he  had  dropped  his  middle-class 
name,  young  Arouet,  the  notary's  offspring,  floated  at  his 
ease  through  the  palaces  of  dukes  and  princes,  with  whose 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  117 

sons  he  drank  and  jested,  and  for  whose  wives — it  was  de 
rigueur  in  those  days — he  expressed  all  the  ardours  of  a  pas- 
sionate and  polite  devotion.  Such  was  his  roseate  situation 
when,  all  at  once,  the  catastrophe  came.  One  night  at  the 
Opera  the  Chevalier  de  Rohan-Chabot,  of  the  famous  and 
powerful  family  of  the  Rohans,  a  man  of  forty-three,  quar- 
relsome, blustering,  whose  reputation  for  courage  left  some- 
thing to  be  desired,  began  to  taunt  the  poet  upon  his  birth — 
"  Monsieur  Arouet,  Monsieur  Voltaire — what  is  your 
name?  "  To  which  the  retort  came  quickly — "  Whatever 
my  name  may  be,  I  know  how  to  preserve  the  honour  of  it." 
The  Chevalier  muttered  something  and  went  off,  but  the  in- 
cident was  not  ended.  Voltaire  had  let  his  high  spirits  and 
his  sharp  tongue  carry  him  too  far,  and  he  was  to  pay  the 
penalty.  It  was  not  an  age  in  which  it  was  safe  to  be  too 
witty  with  lords.  "  Now  mind,  Dancourt,"  said  one  of  those 
grands  seigneurs  to  the  leading  actor  of  the  day,  "  if  you're 
more  amusing  than  I  am  at  dinner  to-night,  je  te  donnerai 
cent  coups  de  batons"  It  was  dangerous  enough  to  show 
one's  wits  at  all  in  the  company  of  such  privileged  persons, 
but  to  do  so  at  their  expense — !  A  few  days  later  Voltaire 
and  the  Chevalier  met  again,  at  the  Comedie,  in  Adrienne 
Lecouvreur's  dressing-room.  Rohan  repeated  his  sneering 
question,  and  "  the  Chevalier  has  had  his  answer  "  was  Vol- 
taire's reply.  Furious,  Rohan  lifted  his  stick,  but  at  that 
moment  Adrienne  very  properly  fainted,  and  the  company 
dispersed.  A  few  days  more  and  Rohan  had  perfected  the 
arrangements  for  his  revenge.  Voltaire,  dining  at  the  Due 
de  Sully's,  where,  we  are  told,  he  was  on  the  footing  of  a  son 
of  the  house,  received  a  message  that  he  was  wanted  outside         f 


ir8  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

in  the  street.  He  went  out,  was  seized  by  a  gang  of  lackeys, 
and  beaten  before  the  eyes  of  Rohan,  who  directed  opera- 
tions from  a  cab.  "  Epargnez  la  tete,"  he  shouted,  "  elle  est 
encore  bonne  pour  faire  rire  le  public  ";  upon  which,  accord- 
ing to  one  account,  there  were  exclamations  from  the  crowd 
which  had  gathered  round  of  "  Ah!  le  bon  seigneur!  "  The 
sequel  is  known  to  everyone:  how  Voltaire  rushed  back,  di- 
shevelled and  agonised,  into  Sully's  dining-room,  how  he 
poured  out  his  story  in  an  agitated  flood  of  words,  and  how 
that  high-born  company,  with  whom  he  had  been  living  up 
to  that  moment  on  terms  of  the  closest  intimacy,  now  only 
displayed  the  signs  of  a  frigid  indifference.  The  caste-feeling 
had  suddenly  asserted  itself.  Poets,  no  doubt,  were  all  very 
well  in  their  way,  but  really,  if  they  began  squabbling  with 
noblemen,  what  could  they  expect?  And  then  the  callous 
and  stupid  convention  of  that  still  half-barbarous  age — the 
convention  which  made  misfortune  the  proper  object  of  ridi- 
cule— came  into  play  no  less  powerfully.  One  might  take  a 
poet  seriously,  perhaps — until  he  was  whipped;  then,  of 
course,  one  could  only  laugh  at  him.  For  the  next  few  days, 
wherever  Voltaire  went  he  was  received  with  icy  looks,  covert 
smiles,  or  exaggerated  politeness.  The  Prince  de  Conti,  who, 
a  month  or  two  before,  had  written  an  ode  in  which  he  placed 
the  author  of  (Edipe  side  by  side  with  the  authors  of  Le  Cid 
and  PhMre,  now  remarked,  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders, 
that  "  ces  coups  de  batons  etaient  bien  re^us  et  mal  donnes." 
"  Nous  serions  bien  malheureux,"  said  another  well-bred 
personage,  as  he  took  a  pinch  of  snuff,  "  si  les  poetes  n'avai- 
ent  pas  des  epaules."  Such  friends  as  remained  faithful 
were  helpless.     Even  Madame  de  Prie  could  do  nothing. 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  119 

"  Le  pauvre  Voltaire  me  fait  grande  pitie,"  she  said;  "  dans 
le  fond  il  a  raison."  But  the  influence  of  the  Rohan  family 
was  too  much  for  her,  and  she  could  only  advise  him  to  dis- 
appear for  a  little  into  the  country,  lest  worse  should  befall. 
Disappear  he  did,  remaining  for  the  next  two  months  con- 
cealed in  the  outskirts  of  Paris,  where  he  practised  swords- 
manship against  his  next  meeting  with  his  enemy.  The  sit- 
uation was  cynically  topsy-turvy.  As  M.  Foulet  points  out, 
Rohan  had  legally  rendered  himself  liable^  under  the  edict 
against  duelling,  to  a  long  term  of  imprisonment,  if  not  to 
the  penalty  of  death.  Yet  the  law  did  not  move,  and  Voltaire 
was  left  to  take  the  only  course  open  in  those  days  to  a  man 
of  honour  in  such  circumstances — to  avenge  the  insult  by  a 
challenge  and  a  fight.  But  now  the  law,  which  had  winked 
at  Rohan,  began  to  act  against  Voltaire.  The  police  were  in- 
structed to  arrest  him  so  soon  as  he  should  show  any  sign 
of  an  intention  to  break  the  peace.  One  day  he  suddenly  ap- 
peared at  Versailles,  evidently  on  the  lookout  for  Rohan, 
and  then  as  suddenly  vanished.  A  few  weeks  later,  the  police 
reported  that  he  was  in  Paris,  lodging  with  a  fencing-master, 
and  making  no  concealment  of  his  desire  to  "  insulter  in- 
cessament  et  avec  eclat  M.  le  chevalier  de  Rohan."  This 
decided  the  authorities,  and  accordingly  on  the  night  of  the 
1 7th  of  April,  as  we  learn  from  the  Police  Gazette,  "  le  sieur 
Arrouet  de  Voltaire,  fameux  poete,"  was  arrested,  and  con- 
ducted "  par  ordre  du  Roi  "  to  the  Bastille. 

A  letter,  written  by  Voltaire  to  his  friend  Madame  de 
Bemieres  while  he  was  still  in  hiding,  reveals  the  effect  which 
these  events  had  produced  upon  his  mind.  It  is  the  first  let- 
ter in  the  series  of  his  collected  correspondence  which  is  not 


I20  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

all  Epicurean  elegance  and  caressing  wit.  The  wit,  the  ele- 
gance, the  finely  turned  phrase,  the  shifting  smile — these 
things  are  still  visible  there  no  doubt,  but  they  are  informed 
and  overmastered  by  a  new,  an  almost  ominous  spirit:  Vol- 
taire, for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  is  serious. 

J'ai  ete  a  I'extremite;  je  n'attends  que  ma  convalescence  pour 
abandonner  a  jamais  ce  pays-ci.  Souvenez-vous  de  I'amitie  tendre 
que  vous  avez  eue  pour  moi;  au  nom  de  cette  amitie  informez- 
moi  par  un  mot  de  voire  main  de  ce  qui  se  passe,  ou  parlez  a 
I'homme  que  je  vous  envoi,  en  qui  vous  pouvez  prendre  une 
entiere  confiance.  Presentez  mes  respects  a  Madame  du  Deffand ; 
dites  k  Thieriot  que  je  veux  absolument  qu'il  m'aime,  ou  quand 
je  serai  mort,  ou  quand  je  serai  heureux;  jusque-la,  je  lui  par- 
donne  son  indifference.  Dites  a  M.  le  chevalier  des  AUeurs  que 
je  n'oublierai  jamais  la  generosite  de  ses  precedes  pour  moi. 
Comptez  que  tout  detrompe  que  je  suis  de  la  vanite  des  amities 
humaines,  la  votre  me  sera  a  jamais  precieuse.  Je  ne  souhaite 
de  revenir  a  Paris  que  pour  vous  voir,  vous  embrasser  encore  une 
fois,  et  vous  faire  voir  ma  Constance  dans  mon  amitie  et  dans  mes 
malheurs. 

"Presentez  mes  respects  a  Madame  du  Deffand!" 
Strange  indeed  are  the  whirligigs  of  Time!  Madame  de 
Bernieres  was  then  living  in  none  other  than  that  famous 
house  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  de  Beaune  and  the  Quai  des 
Theatins  (now  Quai  Voltaire)  where,  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury later,  the  writer  of  those  lines  was  to  come,  bowed  down 
under  the  weight  of  an  enormous  celebrity,  to  look  for  the 
last  time  upon  Paris  and  the  world ;  where,  too,  Madame  du 
Deffand  herself,  decrepit,  blind,  and  bitter  with  the  disillu- 
sionments  of  a  strange  lifetime,  was  to  listen  once  more  to 
the  mellifluous  enchantments  of  that  extraordinary  intelli- 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  121 

gence,  which— so  it  seemed  to  her  as  she  sat  entranced — 
could  never,  never  grow  old/ 

Voltaire  was  not  kept  long  in  the  Bastille.  For  some  time 
he  had  entertained  a  vague  intention  of  visiting  England, 
and  he  now  begged  for  permission  to  leave  the  country.  The 
authorities,  whose  one  object  was  to  prevent  an  unpleasant 
fracas,  were  ready  enough  to  substitute  exile  for  imprison- 
ment; and  thus,  after  a  fortnight's  detention,  the  "  fameux 
poete  "  was  released  on  condition  that  he  should  depart 
forthwith,  and  remain,  until  further  permission,  at  a  dis- 
tance of  at  least  fifty  leagues  from  Versailles. 

It  is  from  this  point  onwards  that  our  information  grows 
scanty  and  confused.  We  know  that  Voltaire  was  in  Calais 
early  in  May,  and  it  is  generally  agreed  that  he  crossed  over 
to  England  shortly  afterwards.  His  subsequent  movements 
are  uncertain.  We  find  him  established  at  Wandsworth  in 
the  middle  of  October,  but  it  is  probable  that  in  the  interval 
he  had  made  a  secret  journey  to  Paris  with  the  object — in 
which  he  did  not  succeed — of  challenging  the  Chevalier  de 
Rohan  to  a  duel.  Where  he  lived  during  these  months  is  un- 
known, but  apparently  it  was  not  in  London.  The  date  of 
his  final  departure  from  England  is  equally  in  doubt;  M. 
Foulet  adduces  some  reasons  for  supposing  that  he  returned 
secretly  to  France  in  November  1728,  and  in  that  case  the 
total  length  of  the  English  visit  was  just  two  and  a  half 
years.    Churton  ColHns,  however,  prolongs  it  until  March, 


*"II  est  aussi  anime  qu'il  ait  jamais  ete.  II  a  quatre-vingt-quatre 
ans,  et  en  verite  je  le  crois  immortel;  il  jouit  de  tous  ses  sens,  aucun 
meme  n'est  affaibli ;  c'est  un  etre  bien  singulier,  et  en  verite  fort 
superieur."    Madame  du  Deffand  to  Horace  Walpole,  12  Avril  1778. 


122  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

1729.  A  similar  obscurity  hangs  over  all  the  details  of  Vol- 
taire's stay.  Not  only  are  his  own  extant  letters  during 
this  period  unusually  few,  but  allusions  to  him  in  contem- 
porary English  correspondences  are  almost  entirely  ab- 
sent. We  have  to  depend  upon  scattered  hints,  uncertain 
inferences,  and  conflicting  rumours.  We  know  that  he 
stayed  for  some  time  at  Wandsworth  with  a  certain  Everard 
Falkener  in  circumstances  which  he  described  to  Thieriot 
in  a  letter  in  English — an  English  quaintly  flavoured  with 
the  gay  impetuosity  of  another  race.  "  At  my  coming  to 
London,"  he  wrote,  "  I  found  my  damned  Jew  was  broken." 
(He  had  depended  upon  sojne  bills  of  exchange  drawn  upon 
a  Jewish  broker.) 

I  was  without  a  penny,  sick  to  dye  of  a  violent  ague,  stranger, 
alone,  helpless,  in  the  midst  of  a  city  wherein  I  was  known  to 
nobody;  my  Lord  and  Lady  Bolingbroke  were  into  the  country; 
I  could  not  make  bold  to  see  our  ambassadour  in  so  wretched  a 
condition.  I  had  never  undergone  such  distress;  but  I  am  born 
to  run  through  all  the  misfortunes  of  life.  In  these  circumstances 
my  star,  that  among  all  its  direful  influences  pours  allways  on  me 
some  kind  refreshment,  sent  to  me  an  English  gentleman  un- 
known to  me,  who  forced  me  to  receive  some  money  that  I 
wanted.  Another  London  citisen  that  I  had  seen  but  once  at 
Paris,  carried  me  to  his  own  country  house,  wherein  I  lead  an 
obscure  and  charming  life  since  that  time,  without  going  to  Lon- 
don, and  quite  given  over  to  the  pleasures  of  indolence  and 
friendshipp.  The  true  and  generous  affection  of  this  man  who 
soothes  the  bitterness  of  my  life  brings  me  to  love  you  more  and 
more.  All  the  instances  of  friendshipp  indear  my  friend  Tiriot 
to  me.  I  have  seen  often  mylord  and  mylady  Bolinbroke;  I 
have  found  their  affection  still  the  same,  even  increased  in  pro- 
portion to  my  unhappiness;  they  offered  me  all,  their  money, 
their  house;  but  I  have  refused  all,  because  they  are  lords,  and 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  123 

I  have  accepted  all  from  Mr.  Faulknear  because  he  is  a  single 
gentleman. 


We  know  that  the  friendship  thus  begun  continued  for 
many  years,  but  as  to  who  or  what  Everard  Falkener  was — 
besides  the  fact  that  he  was  a  "  single  gentleman  " — ^we 
have  only  just  information  enough  to  make  us  wish  for  more. 

"  I  am  here,"  he  wrote  after  Voltaire  had  gone,  "  just  as 
you  left  me,  neither  merrier  nor  sadder,  nor  richer  nor 
poorer,  enjoying  perfect  health,  having  everything  that 
makes  life  agreeable,  without  love,  without  avarice,  without 
ambition,  and  without  envy;  and  as  long  as  all  this  lasts  I 
shall  take  the  liberty  to  call  myself  a  very  happy  man." 
This  stoical  Englishman  was  a  merchant  who  eventually  so 
far  overcame  his  distaste  both  for  ambition  and  for  love,  as 
to  become  first  Ambassador  at  Constantinople  and  then 
Postmaster-General — ^has  anyone,  before  or  since,  ever  held 
such  a  singular  succession  of  offices? — and  to  wind  up  by 
marr5ring,  as  we  are  intriguingly  told,  at  the  age  of  sixty- 
three,  "  the  illegitimate  daughter  of  General  Churchill." 

We  have  another  glimpse  of  Voltaire  at  Wandsworth  in  a 
curious  document  brought  to  light  by  M.  Lanson.  Edward 
Higginson,  an  assistant  master  at  a  Quaker's  school  there, 
remembered  how  the  excitable  Frenchman  used  to  argue  with 
him  for  hours  in  Latin  on  the  subject  of  "  water-baptism," 
until  at  last  Higginson  produced  a  text  from  St.  Paul  which 
seemed  conclusive. 

Some  time  after,  Voltaire  being  at  the  Earl  Temple's  seat  in 
Fulham,  with  Pope  and  others  such,  in  their  conversation  fell  on 
the  subject  of  water-baptism.     Voltaire  assumed  the  part  of  a 


124  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

quaker,  and  at  length  came  to  mention  that  assertion  of  Paul. 
They  questioned  there  being  any  such  assertion  in  all  his  writings ; 
on  which  was  a  large  wager  laid,  as  near  as  I  remember  of  £500: 
and  Voltaire,  not  retaining  where  it  was,  had  one  of  the  Earl's 
horses,  and  came  over  the  ferry  from  Fulham  to  Putney.  .  .  . 
When  I  came  he  desired  me  to  give  him  in  writing  the  place  where 
Paul  said,  he  was  not  sent  to  baptize;  which  I  presently  did. 
Then  courteously  taking  his  leave,  he  mounted  and  rode  back — 

and,  we  must  suppose,  won  his  wager. 

He  seemed  so  taken  with  me  (adds  Higginson)  as  to  offer  to 
buy  out  the  remainder  of  my  time.  I  told  him  I  expected  my 
master  would  be  very  exorbitant  in  his  demand.  He  said,  let  his 
demand  be  what  it  might,  he  would  give  it  on  condition  I  would 
yield  to  be  his  companion,  keeping  the  same  company,  and  I 
should  always,  in  every  respect,  fare  as  he  fared,  wearing  my 
clothes  like  his  and  of  equal  value:  telling  me  then  plainly,  he 
was  a  Deist;  adding,  so  were  most  of  the  noblemen  in  France 
and  in  England;  deriding  the  account  given  by  the  four  Evange- 
lists concerning  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  his  miracles,  etc.,  so  far 
that  I  desired  him  to  desist:  for  I  could  not  bear  to  hear  my 
Saviour  so  reviled  and  spoken  against.  Whereupon  he  seemed 
under  a  disappointment,  and  left  me  with  some  reluctance. 

In  London  itself  we  catch  fleeting  visions  of  the  eager 
gesticulating  figure,  hurrying  out  from  his  lodgings  in  Billiter 
Square — "  Belitery  Square  "  he  calls  it — or  at  the  sign  of 
the  "  White  Whigg  "  in  Maiden  Lane,  Covent  Garden,  to  go 
off  to  the  funeral  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
or  to  pay  a  call  on  Congreve,  or  to  attend  a  Quakers'  Meet- 
ing. One  would  like  to  know  in  which  street  it  was  that  he 
found  himself  surrounded  by  an  insulting  crowd,  whose  jeers 
at  the  "  French  dog  "  he  turned  to  enthusiasm  by  jumping 
upon  a  milestone,  and  delivering  a  harangue  beginning — 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND        ,  125 

"  Brave  Englishmen !  Am  I  not  sufficiently  unhappy  in  not 
having  been  born  among  you?  "  Then  there  are  one  or  two 
stories  of  him  in  the  great  country  houses — at  Bubb  Doding- 
ton's,  where  he  met  Dr.  Young  and  disputed  with  him  upon 
the  episode  of  Sin  and  Death  in  Paradise  Lost  with  such 
vigour  that  at  last  Young  burst  out  with  the  couplet: 

You  are  so  witty,  profligate,  and  thin, 

At  once  we  think  you  Milton,  Death,  and  Sin; 

and  at  Blenheim,  where  the  old  Duchess  of  Marlborough 
hoped  to  lure  him  into  helping  her  with  her  decocted  mem- 
oirs, until  she  found  that  he  had  scruples,  when  in  a  fury 
she  snatched  the  papers  out  of  his  hands.  "  I  thought,"  she 
cried,  "  the  man  had  sense;  but  I  find  him  at  bottom  either 
a  fool  or  a  philosopher." 

It  is  peculiarly  tantalising  that  our  knowledge  should  be 
almost  at  its  scantiest  in  the  very  direction  in  which  we 
should  like  to  know  most,  and  in  which  there  was  most  rea- 
son to  hope  that  our  curiosity  might  have  been  gratified.  Of 
Voltaire's  relations  with  the  circle  of  Pope,  Swift,  and  Bol- 
ingbroke  only  the  most  meagre  details  have  reached  us.  His 
correspondence  with  Bolingbroke,  whom  he  had  known  in 
France  and  whose  presence  in  London  was  one  of  his  prin- 
cipal inducements  in  coming  to  England — a  correspondence 
which  must  have  been  considerable — has  completely  disap- 
peared. Nor,  in  the  numerous  published  letters  which  passed 
about  between  the  members  of  that  distinguished  group,  is 
there  any  reference  to  Voltaire's  name.  Now  and  then  some 
chance  remark  raises  our  expectations,  only  to  make  our 
disappointment  more  acute.    Many  years  later,  for  instance, 


126  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

in  1765,  a  certain  Major  Broome  paid  a  visit  to  Ferney,  and 
made  the  following  entry  in  his  diary: 

Dined  with  Mons.  Voltaire,  who  behaved  very  politely.  He  is 
very  old,  was  dressed  in  a  robe-de-chambre  of  blue  sattan  and 
gold  spots  in  it,  with  a  sort  of  blue  sattan  cap  and  tassle  of  gold. 
He  spoke  all  the  time  in  English.  .  .  .  His  house  is  not  very 
fine,  but  genteel,  and  stands  upon  a  mount  close  to  the  moun- 
tains. He  is  tall  and  very  thin,  has  a  very  piercing  eye,  and  a 
look  singularly  vivacious.  He  told  me  of  his  acquaintance  with 
Pope,  Swift  (with  whom  he  lived  for  three  months  at  Lord  Peter- 
borough's) and  Gay,  who  first  showed  him  the  Beggar's  Opera 
before  it  was  acted.  He  says  he  admires  Swift,  and  loved  Gay 
vastly.  He  said  that  Swift  had  a  great  deal  of  the  ridiculum 
acre. 

And  then  Major  Broome  goes  on  to  describe  the  "  hand- 
some new  church  "  at  Ferney,  and  the  "  very  neat  water- 
works "  at  Geneva.  But  what  a  vision  has  he  opened  out 
for  us,  and,  in  that  very  moment,  shut  away  for  ever  from 
our  gaze  in  that  brief  parenthesis — "  with  whom  he  lived  for 
three  months  at  I^ord  Peterborough's  "!  What  would  we 
not  give  now  for  no  more  than  one  or  two  of  the  bright  im- 
perishable drops  from  that  noble  river  of  talk  which  flowed 
then  with  such  a  careless  abundance! — that  prodigal  stream, 
swirling  away,  so  swiftly  and  so  happily,  into  the  empty 
spaces  of  forgetfulness  and  the  long  night  of  Time! 

So  complete,  indeed,  is  the  lack  of  precise  and  well-au- 
thenticated information  upon  this,  by  far  the  most  obviously 
interesting  side  of  Voltaire's  life  in  England,  that  some 
writers  have  been  led  to  adopt  a  very  different  theory  from 
that  which  is  usually  accepted,  and  to  suppose  that  his  re- 
lations with  Pope's  circle  were  in  reality  either  of  a  purely 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  127 

superficial,  or  even  of  an  actually  disreputable,  kind.  Vol- 
taire himself,  no  doubt,  was  anxious  to  appear  as  the  inti- 
mate friend  of  the  great  writers  of  England;  but  what  rea- 
son is  there  to  believe  that  he  was  not  embroidering  upon 
the  facts,  and  that  his  true  position  was  not  that  of  a  mere 
literary  hanger-on,  eager  simply  for  money  and  reclame, 
with,  perhaps,  no  particular  scruples  as  to  his  means  of  get- 
ting hold  of  those  desirable  ends?  The  objection  to  this 
theory  is  that  there  is  even  less  evidence  to  support  it  than 
there  is  to  support  Voltaire's  own  story.  There  are  a  few 
rumours  and  anecdotes;  but  that  is  all.  Voltaire  was  prob- 
ably the  best-hated  man  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  it  is 
only  natural  that,  out  of  the  enormous  mass  of  mud  that  was 
thrown  at  him,  some  handfuls  should  have  been  particularly 
aimed  at  his  life  in  England.  Accordingly,  we  learn  that 
somebody  was  told  by  somebody  else — "  avec  des  details  que 
je  ne  rapporterai  point " — that  "  M.  de  Voltaire  se  conduisit 
tres-irregulierement  en  Angleterre:  qu'il  s'y  est  fait  beau- 
coup  d'ennemis,  par  des  procedes  qui  n'accordaient  pas  avec 
les  principes  d'une  morale  exacte."  And  we  are  told  that  he 
left  England  "  under  a  cloud  ";  that  before  he  went  he  was 
"  cudgelled  "  by  an  infuriated  publisher;  that  he  swindled 
Lord  Peterborough  out  of  large  sums  of  money,  and  that 
the  outraged  nobleman  drew  his  sword  upon  the  miscreant, 
who  only  escaped  with  his  life  by  a  midnight  flight.  A  more 
circumstantial  story  has  been  given  currency  by  Dr.  Johnson. 
Voltaire,  it  appears,  was  a  spy  in  the  pay  of  Walpole,  and 
was  in  the  habit  of  betraying  Bolingbroke's  political  secrets 
to  the  Government.  The  tale  first  appears  in  a  third-rate 
life  of  Pope  by  Owen  Ruffhead,  who  had  it  from  Warburton, 


128  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

who  had  it  from  Pope  himself.  Oddly  enough  Churton  Col- 
lins apparently  believed  it,  partly  upon  the  evidence  afforded 
by  the  "  fulsome  flattery  "  and  "  exaggerated  compliments  " 
to  be  found  in  Voltaire's  correspondence,  which,  he  says,  re- 
veal a  man  in  whom  "  falsehood  and  hypocrisy  are  of  the 
very  essence  of  his  composition.  There  is  nothing,  however 
base,  to  which  he  will  not  stoop:  there  is  no  law  in  the  code 
of  social  honour  which  he  is  not  capable  of  violating."  Such 
an  extreme  and  sweeping  conclusion,  following  from  such 
shadowy  premises,  seems  to  show  that  some  of  the  mud 
thrown  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  still  sticking  in  the 
twentieth.  M.  Foulet,  however,  has  examined  Ruffhead's 
charge  in  a  very  different  spirit,  with  conscientious  minute- 
ness, and  has  concluded  that  it  is  utterly  without  foundation. 
It  is,  indeed,  certain  that  Voltaire's  acquaintanceship  was 
not  limited  to  the  extremely  bitter  Opposition  circle  which 
centred  about  the  disappointed  and  restless  figure  of  Boling- 
broke.  He  had  come  to  London  with  letters  of  introduction 
from  Horace  Walpole,  the  English  Ambassador  at  Paris,  to 
various  eminent  persons  in  the  Government.  "  Mr.  Vol- 
taire, a  poet  and  a  very  ingenious  one,"  was  recommended  by 
Walpole  to  the  favour  and  protection  of  the  Duke  of  New- 
castle, while  Dodington  was  asked  to  support  the  subscrip- 
tion to  "  an  excellent  poem,  called  '  Henry  IV.,'  which,  on 
account  of  some  bold  strokes  in  it  against  persecution  and 
the  priests,  cannot  be  printed  here."  These  letters  had  their 
effect,  and  Voltaire  rapidly  made  friends  at  Court.  When 
he  brought  out  his  London  edition  of  the  Henriade,  there  was 
hardly  a  great  name  in  England  which  was  not  on  the  sub- 
scription list.   He  was  allowed  to  dedicate  the  poem  to  Queen 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  129 

Caroline,  and  he  received  a  royal  gift  of  £240.  Now  it  is 
also  certain  that  just  before  this  time  Bolingbroke  and  Swift 
were  suspicious  of  a  "  certain  pragmatical  spy  of  quality, 
well  known  to  act  in  that  capacity  by  those  into  whose  com- 
pany he  insinuates  himself,"  who,  they  believed,  was  be- 
traying their  plans  to  the  Government.  But  to  conclude  that 
this  detected  spy  was  Voltaire,  whose  favour  at  Court  was 
known  to  be  the  reward  of  treachery  to  his  friends,  is,  apart 
from  the  inherent  improbability  of  the  supposition,  rendered 
almost  impossible,  owing  to  the  fact  that  Bolingbroke  and 
Swift  were  themselves  subscribers  to  the  Henriade — Boling- 
broke took  no  fewer  than  twenty  copies — and  that  Swift  was 
not  only  instrumental  in  obtaining  a  large  number  of  Irish 
subscriptions,  but  actually  wrote  a  preface  to  the  Dublin 
edition  of  another  of  Voltaire's  works.  What  inducement 
could  Bolingbroke  have  had  for  such  liberality  towards  a 
man  who  had  betrayed  him?  Who  can  conceive  of  the  re- 
doubtable Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  then  at  the  very  summit  of 
his  fame,  dispensing  such  splendid  favours  to  a  wretch  whom 
he  knew  to  be  engaged  in  the  shabbiest  of  all  traffics  at  the 
expense  of  himself  and  his  friends? 

Voltaire's  literary  activities  were  as  insatiable  while  he 
was  in  England  as  during  every  other  period  of  his  career. 
Besides  the  edition  of  the  Henriade,  which  was  considerably 
altered  and  enlarged — one  of  the  changes  was  the  silent  re- 
moval of  the  name  of  Sully  from  its  pages — ^he  brought  out 
a  volume  of  two  essays,  written  in  English,  upon  the  French 
Civil  Wars  and  upon  Epic  Poetry,  he  began  an  adaptation  of 
Julius  Ccesar  for  the  French  stage,  he  wrote  the  opening  acts 
of  his  tragedy  of  Brutus,  and  he  collected  a  quantity  of  ma- 


I30  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

terial  for  his  History  of  Charles  XII.  In  addition  to  all  this, 
he  was  busily  engaged  with  the  preparations  for  his  Lettres 
Philosophiques.  The  Henriade  met  with  a  great  success. 
Every  copy  of  the  magnificent  quarto  edition  was  sold  be- 
fore publication;  three  octavo  editions  were  exhausted  in  as 
many  weeks;  and  Voltaire  made  a  profit  of  at  least  ten  thou- 
sand francs.  M.  Foulet  thinks  that  he  left  England  shortly 
after  this  highly  successful  transaction,  and  that  he  estab- 
lished himself  secretly  in  some  town  in  Normandy,  probably 
Rouen,  where  he  devoted  himself  to  the  completion  of  the 
various  works  which  he  had  in  hand.  Be  this  as  it  may,  he 
was  certainly  in  France  early  in  April  1729;  a  few  days 
later  he  applied  for  permission  to  return  to  Paris;  this  was 
granted  on  the  9th  of  April,  and  the  remarkable  incident 
which  had  begun  at  the  Opera  more  than  three  years  before 
came  to  a  close. 

It  was  not  until  five  years  later  that  the  Lettres  Philoso- 
phiques appeared.  This  epoch-making  book  was  the  lens 
by  means  of  which  Voltaire  gathered  together  the  scattered 
rays  of  his  English  impressions  into  a  focus  of  brilliant  and 
burning  intensity.  It  so  happened  that  the  nation  into  whose 
midst  he  had  plunged,  and  whose  characteristics  he  had 
scrutinised  with  so  avid  a  curiosity,  had  just  reached  one  of 
the  culminating  moments  in  its  history.  The  great  achieve- 
ment of  the  Revolution  and  the  splendid  triumphs  of  Marl- 
borough had  brought  to  England  freedom,  power,  wealth, 
and  that  sense  of  high  exhilaration  which  springs  from  vic- 
tory and  self-confidence.  Her  destiny  was  in  the  hands  of 
an  aristocracy  which  was  not  only  capable  and  enlightened, 
like  most  successful  aristocracies,  but  which  possessed  the 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  131 

peculiar  attribute  of  being  deep-rooted  in  popular  traditions 
and  popular  sympathies  and  of  drawing  its  life-blood  from 
the  popular  will.  The  agitations  of  the  reign  of  Anne  were 
over;  the  stagnation  of  the  reign  of  Walpole  had  not  yet  be- 
gun. There  was  a  great  outburst  of  intellectual  activity  and 
aesthetic  energy.  The  amazing  discoveries  of  Newton  seemed 
to  open  out  boundless  possibilities  of  speculation ;  and  in  the 
meantime  the  great  nobles  were  building  palaces  and  reviv- 
ing the  magnificence  of  the  Augustan  Age,  while  men  of  let- 
ters filled  the  offices  of  state.  Never,  perhaps,  before  or 
since,  has  England  been  so  thoroughly  English;  never  have 
the  national  qualities  of  solidity  and  sense,  independence  of 
judgment  and  idiosyncrasy  of  temperament,  received  a  more 
forcible  and  complete  expression.  It  was  the  England  of 
Walpole  and  Carteret,  of  Butler  and  Berkeley,  of  Swift  and 
Pope.  The  two  works  which,  out  of  the  whole  range  of  Eng- 
lish literature,  contain  in  a  supreme  degree  those  elements 
of  power,  breadth,  and  common  sense,  which  lie  at  the  root 
of  the  national  genius — Gulliver's  Travels  and  the  Dun- 
ciad — both  appeared  during  Voltaire's  visit.  Nor  was  it 
only  in  the  high  places  of  the  nation's  consciousness  that 
these  signs  were  manifest;  they  were  visible  everywhere,  to 
every  stroller  through  the  London  streets — in  the  Royal  Ex- 
change, where  all  the  world  came  crowding  to  pour  its  gold 
into  English  purses,  in  the  Meeting  Houses  of  the  Quakers, 
where  the  Holy  Spirit  rushed  forth  untrammelled  to  clothe 
itself  in  the  sober  garb  of  English  idiom,  and  in  the  taverns 
of  Cheapside,  where  the  brawny  fellow-countrymen  of  New- 
ton and  Shakespeare  sat,  in  an  impenetrable  silence,  over 
their  English  beef  and  English  beer. 


132  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

It  was  only  natural  that  such  a  society  should  act  as  a 
powerful  stimulus  upon  the  vivid  temperament  of  Voltaire, 
who  had  come  to  it  with  the  bitter  knowledge  fresh  in  his 
mind  of  the  medieval  futility,  the  narrow-minded  cynicism 
of  his  own  country.  Yet  the  book  which  was  the  result  is  in 
many  ways  a  surprising  one.  It  is  almost  as  remarkable  for 
what  it  does  not  say  as  for  what  it  does.  In  the  first  place, 
Voltaire  makes  no  attempt  to  give  his  readers  an  account  of 
the  outward  surface,  the  social  and  spectacular  aspects  of 
English  life.  It  is  impossible  not  to  regret  this,  especially 
since  we  know,  from  a  delightful  fragment  which  was  not 
published  until  after  his  death,  describing  his  first  impres- 
sions on  arriving  in  London,  in  how  brilliant  and  inimitable  a 
fashion  he  would  have  accomplished  the  task.  A  full-length 
portrait  of  Hanoverian  England  from  the  personal  point  of 
view,  by  Voltaire,  would  have  been  a  priceless  possession  for 
posterity;  but  it  was  never  to  be  painted.  The  first  sketch, 
revealing  in  its  perfection  the  hand  of  the  master,  was  lightly 
drawn,  and  then  thrown  aside  for  ever.  And  in  reality  it  is 
better  so.  Voltaire  decided  to  aim  at  something  higher  and 
more  important,  something  more  original  and  more  pro- 
found. He  determined  to  write  a  book  which  should  be, 
not  the  sparkling  record  of  an  ingenious  traveller,  but  a 
work  of  propaganda  and  a  declaration  of  faith.  That  new 
mood,  which  had  come  upon  him  first  in  Sully's  dining-room 
and  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  quivering  phrases  of  the  note  to 
Madame  de  Bernieres,  was  to  grow,  in  the  congenial  air  of 
England,  into  the  dominating  passion  of  his  life.  Hence- 
forth, whatever  quips  and  follies,  whatever  flouts  and  mock- 
eries might  play  upon  the  surface,  he  was  to  be  in  deadly 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  133 

earnest  at  heart.  He  was  to  live  and  die  a  fighter  in  the 
ranks  of  progress,  a  champion  in  the  mighty  struggle  which 
was  now  beginning  against  the  powers  of  darkness  in  France. 
The  first  great  blow  in  that  struggle  had  been  struck  ten 
years  earlier  by  Montesquieu  in  his  Lettres  Persanes;  the 
second  was  struck  by  Voltaire  in  the  Lettres  Philosophiques, 
The  intellectual  freedom,  the  vigorous  precision,  the  elegant 
urbanity  which  characterise  the  earlier  work  appear  in  a  yet 
more  perfect  form  in  the  later  one.  Voltaire's  book,  as  its 
title  indicates,  is  in  effect  a  series  of  generalised  reflections 
upon  a  multitude  of  important  topics,  connected  together  by 
a  common  point  of  view.  A  description  of  the  institutions 
and  manners  of  England  is  only  an  incidental  part  of  the 
scheme:  it  is  the  fulcrum  by  means  of  which  the  lever  of 
Voltaire's  philosophy  is  brought  into  operation.  The  book 
is  an  extremely  short  one — it  fills  less  than  two  hundred 
small  octavo  pages;  and  its  tone  and  style  have  just  that 
light  and  airy  gaiety  which  befits  the  ostensible  form  of  it — 
a  set  of  private  letters  to  a  friend.  With  an  extraordinary 
width  of  comprehension,  an  extraordinary  pliability  of  in- 
telligence, Voltaire  touches  upon  a  hundred  subjects  of  the 
most  varied  interest  and  importance — from  the  theory  of 
gravitation  to  the  satires  of  Lord  Rochester,  from  the  effects 
of  inoculation  to  the  immortality  of  the  soul — and  every 
touch  tells.  It  is  the  spirit  of  Humanism  carried  to  its  fur- 
thest, its  quintessential  point;  indeed,  at  first  sight,  one  is 
tempted  to  think  that  this  quality  of  rarefied  universality 
has  been  exaggerated  into  a  defect.  The  matters  treated  of 
are  so  many  and  so  vast,  they  are  disposed  of  and  dismissed 
so  swiftly,  so  easily,  so  unemphatically,  that  one  begins  to 


134  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

wonder  whether,  after  all,  anything  of  real  significance  can 
have  been  expressed.  But,  in  reality,  what,  in  those  few 
small  pages,  has  been  expressed  is  simply  the  whole  philoso- 
phy of  Voltaire.  He  offers  one  an  exquisite  dish  of  whipped 
cream;  one  swallows  down  the  unsubstantial  trifle,  and  asks 
impatiently  if  that  is  all?  At  any  rate,  it  is  enough.  Into 
that  frothy  sweetness  his  subtle  hand  has  insinuated  a  single 
drop  of  some  strange  liquor — is  it  a  poison  or  is  it  an  elixir 
of  hfe? — whose  penetrating  influence  will  spread  and  spread 
until  the  remotest  fibres  of  the  system  have  felt  its  power. 
Contemporary  French  readers,  when  they  had  shut  the  book, 
found  somehow  that  they  were  looking  out  upon  a  new 
world;  that  a  process  of  disintegration  had  begun  among 
their  most  intimate  beliefs  and  feelings;  that  the  whole  rigid 
frame-work  of  society — of  life  itself — the  hard,  dark,  nar- 
row, antiquated  structure  of  their  existence — had  suddenly, 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  become  a  faded,  shadowy  thing. 
It  might  have  been  expected  that,  among  the  reforms 
which  such  a  work  would  advocate,  a  prominent  place  would 
certainly  have  been  given  to  those  of  a  political  nature.  In 
England  a  political  revolution  had  been  crowned  with  tri- 
umph, and  all  that  was  best  in  English  life  was  founded  upon 
the  political  institutions  which  had  been  then  established. 
The  moral  was  obvious:  one  had  only  to  compare  the  state 
of  England  under  a  free  government  with  the  state  of  France, 
disgraced,  bankrupt,  and  incompetent,  under  autocratic 
rule.  But  the  moral  is  never  drawn  by  Voltaire.  His  refer- 
ences to  political  questions  are  slight  and  vague;  he  gives  a 
sketch  of  English  history,  which  reaches  Magna  Charta,  sud- 
denly mentions  Henry  VII.,  and  then  stops;  he  has  not  a 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  135 

word  to  say  upon  the  responsibility  of  Ministers,  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  judicature,  or  even  the  freedom  of  the  press. 
He  approves  of  the  English  financial  system,  whose  control 
by  the  Commons  he  mentions,  but  he  fails  to  indicate  the  im- 
portance of  the  fact.  As  to  the  underlying  principles  of  the 
constitution,  the  account  which  he  gives  of  them  conveys 
hardly  more  to  the  reader  than  the  famous  lines  in  the 
Henriade: 

Aux  murs  de  Westminster  on  voit  paraitre  ensemble 
Trois  pouvoirs  etonnes  du  noeud  qui  les  rassemble. 

Apparently  Voltaire  was  aware  of  these  deficiencies,  for  in 
the  English  edition  of  the  book  he  caused  the  following  curi- 
ous excuses  to  be  inserted  in  the  preface: 

Some  of  his  English  Readers  may  perhaps  be  dissatisfied  at 
his  not  expatiating  farther  on  their  Constitution  and  their  Laws, 
which  most  of  them  revere  almost  to  Idolatry;  but,  this  Reserved- 
ness  is  an  effect  of  M.  de  Voltaire's  Judgment.  He  contented 
himself  with  giving  his  opinion  of  them  in  general  Reflexions, 
the  Cast  of  which  is  entirely  new,  and  which  prove  that  he  had 
made  this  Part  of  the  British  Polity  his  particular  Study.  Be- 
sides, how  was  it  possible  for  a  Foreigner  to  pierce  thro'  their 
Politicks,  that  gloomy  Labyrinth,  in  which  such  of  the  English 
themselves  as  are  best  acquainted  with  it,  confess  daily  that  they 
are  bewilder'd  and  lost? 

Nothing  could  be  more  characteristic  of  the  attitude,  not  only 
of  Voltaire  himself,  but  of  the  whole  host  of  his  followers  in 
the  later  eighteenth  century,  towards  the  actual  problems  of 
politics.  They  turned  away  in  disgust  from  the  "  gloomy 
labyrinth  "  of  practical  fact  to  take  refuge  in  those  charming 
"  general  Reflections  "  so  dear  to  their  hearts,  "  the  Cast  of 


136  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

which  was  entirely  new  " — and  the  conclusion  of  which  was 
also  entirely  new,  for  it  was  the  French  Revolution. 

It  was,  indeed,  typical  of  Voltaire  and  of  his  age  that  the 
Lettres  Philosophiques  should  have  been  condemned  by  the 
authorities,  not  for  any  political  heterodoxy,  but  for  a  few 
remarks  which  seemed  to  call  in  question  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  His  attack  upon  the  ancien  regime  was,  in  the 
main,  a  theoretical  attack;  doubtless  its  immediate  effective- 
ness was  thereby  diminished  but  its  ultimate  force  was  in- 
creased. And  the  ancien  regime  itself  was  not  slow  to  realise 
the  danger :  to  touch  the  ark  of  metaphysical  orthodoxy  was 
in  its  eyes  the  unforgiveable  sin.  Voltaire  knew  well  enough 
that  he  must  be  careful. 

II  n'y  a  qu'une  lettre  touchant  M.  Loke  [he  wrote  to  a  friend]. 
La  seule  matiere  philosophique  que  j'y  traite  est  la  petite  baga- 
telle de  I'immortalite  de  I'ame;  mais  la  chose  a  trop  de  conse- 
quence pour  la  trailer  serieusement.  II  a  fallu  I'egorger  pour  ne 
pas  heurter  de  front  nos  seigneurs  les  theologiens,  gens  qui  voient 
si  clairement  la  spiritualite  de  I'ame  qu'ils  feraient  bruler,  s'ils 
pouvaient,  les  corps  de  ceux  qui  en  doutent. 

Nor  was  it  only  "  M.  Loke  "  whom  he  felt  himself  obliged 
to  touch  so  gingerly;  the  remarkable  movement  towards 
Deism,  which  was  then  beginning  in  England,  Voltaire  only 
dared  to  allude  to  in  a  hardly  perceivable  hint.  He  just 
mentions,  almost  in  a  parenthesis,  the  names  of  Shaftesbury, 
Collins,  and  Toland,  and  then  quickly  passes  on.  In  this 
connexion,  it  may  be  noticed  that  the  influence  upon  Vol- 
taire of  the  writers  of  this  group  has  often  been  exaggerated. 
To  say,  as  Lord  Morley  says,  that  "  it  was  the  English  on- 
slaught which  sowed  in  him  the  seed  of  the  idea  .  .  .  of  a 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  137 

systematic  and  reasoned  attack  "  upon  Christian  theology, 
is  to  misjudge  the  situation.  In  the  first  place  it  is  certain 
both  that  Voltaire's  opinions  upon  those  matters  were  fixed, 
and  that  his  proselytising  habits  had  begun,  long  before  he 
came  to  England.  There  is  curious  evidence  of  this  in  an 
anonymous  letter,  preserved  among  the  archives  of  the 
Bastille,  and  addressed  to  the  head  of  the  police  at  the  time 
of  Voltaire's  imprisonment. 

.Vous  venez  de  mettre  a  la  Bastille  [says  the  writer,  who,  it  is 
supposed,  was  an  ecclesiastic]  un  homme  que  je  souhaitais  y  voir 
il  y  a  plus  de  15  annees. 

The  writer  goes  on  to  speak  of  the 

metier  que  faisait  lliomme  en  question,  prechant  le  deisme  tout 
a  decouvert  aux  toilettes  de  nos  jeunes  seigneurs.  .  .  .  L'Ancien 
Testament,  selon  lui,  n'est  qu'un  tissu  de  contes  et  de  fables, 
les  apotres  etaient  de  bonnes  gens  idiots,  simples,  et  credules,  et 
les  peres  de  I'Eglise,  Saint  Bernard  surtout,  auquel  il  en  veut  le 
plus,  n'etaient  que  des  charlatans  et  des  suborneurs. 

"  Je  voudrais  etre  homme  d'authorite,"  he  adds,  "  pour  un 
jour  seulement,  afin  d'enfermer  ce  poete  entre  quatre  mu- 
railles  pour  toute  sa  vie."  That  Voltaire  at  this  early  date 
should  have  already  given  rise  to  such  pious  ecclesiastical 
wishes  shows  clearly  enough  that  he  had  little  to  learn  from 
the  deists  of  England.  And,  in  the  second  place,  the  deists 
of  England  had  very  little  to  teach  a  disciple  of  Bayle,  Fon- 
tenelle,  and  Montesquieu.  They  were,  almost  without  ex- 
ception, a  group  of  second-rate  and  insignificant  writers 
whose  "  onslaught "  upon  current  beliefs  was  only  to  a  faint 
extent  "  systematic  and  reasoned."   The  feeble  and  fluctuat- 


138  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

ing  rationalism  of  Toland  and  WoUaston,  the  crude  and  con- 
fused rationalism  of  Collins,  the  half-crazy  rationalism  of 
Woolston  may  each  and  all,  no  doubt,  have  furnished  Vol- 
taire with  arguments  and  suggestions,  but  they  cannot  have 
seriously  influenced  Kis  thought.  Bolingbroke  was  a  more 
important  figure,  and  he  was  in  close  personal  relation  with 
Voltaire;  but  his  controversial  writings  were  clumsy  and 
superficial  to  an  extraordinary  degree.  As  Voltaire  himself 
said,  "  in  his  works  there  are  many  leaves  and  little  fruit; 
distorted  expressions  and  periods  intolerably  long."  Tindal 
and  Middleton  were  more  vigorous;  but  their  work  did  not 
appear  until  a  later  period.  The  masterly  and  far-reaching 
speculations  of  Hume  belong,  of  course,  to  a  totally  different 
class. 

Apart  from  politics  and  metaphysics,  there  were  two  direc- 
tions in  which  the  Lettres  Philosophiques  did  pioneer  work  of 
a  highly  important  kind:  they  introduced  both  Newton  and 
Shakespeare  to  the  French  pubHc.  The  four  letters  on  New- 
ton show  Voltaire  at  his  best — succinct,  lucid,  persuasive, 
and  bold.  The  few  paragraphs  on  Shakespeare,  on  the  other 
hand,  show  him  at  his  worst.  Their  principal  merit  is  that 
they  mention  his  existence — a  fact  hitherto  unknown  in 
France;  otherwise  they  merely  afford  a  striking  example  of 
the  singular  contradiction  in  Voltaire's  nature  which  made 
him  a  revolutionary  in  intellect  and  kept  him  a  high  Tory 
in  taste.  Never  was  such  speculative  audacity  combined 
with  such  aesthetic  timidity;  it  is  as  if  he  had  reserved  all 
his  superstition  for  matters  of  art.  From  his  account  of 
Shakespeare,  it  is  clear  that  he  had  never  dared  to  open  his 
eyes  and  frankly  look  at  what  he  should  see  before  him. 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  139 

All  was  "  barbare,  depourvu  de  bienseances,  d'ordre,  de 
vraisemblance  ";  in  the  hurly-burly  he  was  dimly  aware  of 
a  figured  and  elevated  style,  and  of  some  few  "  lueurs  eton- 
nantes  ";  but  to  the  true  significance  of  Shakespeare's  genius 
he  remained  utterly  blind. 

Characteristically  enough,  Voltaire,  at  the  last  moment, 
did  his  best  to  reinforce  his  tentative  metaphysical  observa- 
tions on  "  M.  Loke  "  by  slipping  into  his  book,  as  it  were 
accidentally,  an  additional  letter,  quite  disconnected  from 
the' rest  of  the  work,  containing  reflexions  upon  some  of  the 
Pensees  of  Pascal.  He  no  doubt  hoped  that  these  reflexions, 
into  which  he  had  distilled  some  of  his  most  insidious  venom, 
might,  under  cover  of  the  rest,  pass  unobserved.  But  all 
his  subterfuges  were  useless.  It  was  in  vain  that  he  pulled 
wires  and  intrigued  with  high  personages;  in  vain  that  he 
made  his  way  to  the  aged  Minister,  Cardinal  Fleury,  and  at- 
tempted, by  reading  him  some  choice  extracts  on  the  Quak- 
ers, to  obtain  permission  for  the  publication  of  his  book. 
The  old  Cardinal  could  not  help  smiling,  though  Voltaire 
had  felt  that  it  would  be  safer  to  skip  the  best  parts — "  the 
poor  man !  "  he  said  afterwards,  "  he  didn't  realise  what  he 
had  missed  " — but  the  permission  never  came.  Voltaire  was 
obliged  to  have  recourse  to  an  illicit  publication;  and  then 
the  authorities  acted  with  full  force.  The  Lettres  Philoso- 
phiques  were  officially  condemned;  the  book  was  declared 
to  be  scandalous  and  "  contraire  k  la  religion,  aux  bonnes 
moeurs,  et  au  respect  du  aux  puissances,"  and  it  was  ordered 
to  be  publicly  burned  by  the  executioner.  The  result  was 
precisely  what  might  have  been  expected:  the  prohibitions 
and  fulminations,  so  far  from  putting  a  stop  to  the  sale  of 


I40  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

such  exciting  matter,  sent  it  up  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Eng- 
land suddenly  became  the  fashion;  the  theories  of  M.  Loke 
and  Sir  Newton  began  to  be  discussed;  even  the  plays  of 
"  ce  fou  de  Shakespeare  "  began  to  be  read.  And,  at  the 
same  time,  the  whispered  message  of  tolerance,  of  free  in- 
quiry, of  enlightened  curiosity,  was  carried  over  the  land. 
The  success  of  Voltaire's  work  was  complete. 

He  himself,  however,  had  been  obliged  to  seek  refuge  from 
the  wrath  of  the  government  in  the  remote  seclusion  of 
Madame  du  Chatelet's  country  house  at  Cirey.  In  this  re- 
tirement he  pursued  his  studies  of  Newton,  and  a  few  years 
later  produced  an  exact  and  brilliant  summary  of  the  work 
of  the  great  English  philosopher.  Once  more  the  authorities 
intervened,  and  condemned  Voltaire's  book.  The  Newtonian 
system  destroyed  that  of  Descartes,  and  Descartes  still  spoke 
in  France  with  the  voice  of  orthodoxy;  therefore,  of  course, 
the  voice  of  Newton  must  not  be  heard.  But,  somehow  or 
other,  the  voice  of  Newton  was  heard.  The  men  of  science 
were  converted  to  the  new  doctrine;  and  thus  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  the  wonderful  advances  in  the  study  of 
mathematics  which  took  place  in  France  during  the  later 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  the  result  of  the  illum- 
inating zeal  of  Voltaire. 

With  his  work  on  Newton,  Voltaire's  direct  connexion 
with  English  influences  came  to  an  end.  For  the  rest  of  his 
life,  indeed,  he  never  lost  his  interest  in  England;  he  was 
never  tired  of  reading  English  books,  of  being  polite  to  Eng- 
lish travellers,  and  of  doing  his  best,  in  the  intervals  of  more 
serious  labours,  to  destroy  the  reputation  of  that  deplorable 
English  buffoon,  whom,  unfortunately,  he  himself  had  been 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ENGLAND  141 

so  foolish  as  first  to  introduce  to  the  attention  of  his  country- 
men. But  it  is  curious  to  notice  how,  as  time  went  on,  the 
force  of  Voltaire's  nature  inevitably  carried  him  further  and 
further  away  from  the  central  standpoints  of  the  English 
mind.  The  stimulus  which  he  had  received  in  England  only 
served  to  urge  him  into  a  path  which  no  Englishman  has  ever 
trod.  The  movement  of  English  thought  in  the  eighteenth 
century  found  its  perfect  expression  in  the  profound,  scepti- 
cal, and  yet  essentially  conservative,  genius  of  Hume.  How 
different  was  the  attitude  of  Voltaire!  With  what  a  reckless 
audacity,  what  a  fierce  uncompromising  passion  he  charged 
and  fought  and  charged  again !  He  had  no  time  for  the  nice 
discriminations  of  an  elaborate  philosophy,  and  no  desire  for 
the  careful  balance  of  the  Judicial  mind;  his  creed  was  sim- 
ple and  explicit,  and  it  also  possessed  the  supreme  merit  of 
brevity:  "  Ecrasez  I'infame!  "  was  enough  for  him. 

1914. 


A  DIALOGUE 

BETWEEN  Moses,  Diogenes,  and  Mr.  Loke 

Diogenes 

Confess,  oh  Moses!  Your  Miracles  were  but  conjuring-tricks, 
your  Prophecies  lucky  Hazards,  and  your  Laws  a  Gallimaufry  of 
Commonplaces  and  Absurdities. 

Mr.  Loke 

Confess  that  you  were  more  skill'd  in  flattering  the  Vulgar 
than  in  ascertaining  the  Truth,  and  that  your  Reputation  in  the 
World  would  never  have  been  so  high,  had  your  Lot  fallen  among 
a  Nation  of  Philosophers. 

Diogenes 

Confess  that  when  you  taught  the  Jews  to  spoil  the  Egyptians 
you  were  a  sad  rogue. 

Mr.  Loke 

Confess  that  it  was  a  Fable  to  give  Horses  to  Pharaoh  and  an 
imcloven  hoof  to  the  Hare. 

Diogenes 
Confess  that  you  did  never  see  the  Back  Parts  of  the  Lord. 

Mr.  Loke 

Confess  that  your  style  had  too  much  Singularity  and  too  little 
Taste  to  be  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Moses 

All  this  may  be  true,  my  good  Friends;  but  what  are  the  Con- 
clusions you  would  draw  from  your  Raillery?    Do  you  suppose 

142 


A  DIALOGUE  143 

that  I  am  ignorant  of  all  that  a  Wise  Man  might  urge  against 
my  Conduct,  my  Tales,  and  my  Language?  But  alas!  my  path 
was  chalk'd  out  for  me  not  by  Choice  but  by  Necessity.  I  had 
not  the  Happiness  of  living  in  England  or  a  Tub.  I  was  the 
Leader  of  an  ignorant  and  superstitious  People,  who  would  never 
have  heeded  the  sober  Counsels  of  Good  Sense  and  Toleration, 
and  who  would  have  laughed  at  the  Refinements  of  a  nice  Phi- 
losophy. It  was  necessary  to  flatter  their  Vanity  by  telling 
them  that  they  were  the  favour 'd  Children  of  God,  to  satisfy 
their  Passions  by  allowing  them  to  be  treacherous  and  cruel  to 
their  Enemies,  and  to  tickle  their  Ears  by  Stories  and  Farces  by 
turns  ridiculous  and  horrible,  fit  either  for  a  Nursery  or  Bedlam. 
By  such  Contrivances  I  was  able  to  attain  my  Ends  and  to 
establish  the  Welfare  of  my  Countrymen.  Do  you  blame  me? 
It  is  not  the  business  of  a  Ruler  to  be  truthful,  but  to  be  politick; 
he  must  fly  even  from  Virtue  herself,  if  she  sit  in  a  different 
Quarter  from  Expediency.  It  is  his  Duty  to  sacrifice  the  Best, 
which  is  impossible,  to  a  little  Good,  which  is  close  at  hand.  I 
was  willing  to  lay  down  a  Multitude  of  foolish  Laws,  so  that, 
under  their  Cloak,  I  might  slip  in  a  few  Wise  ones;  and,  had  I 
not  shown  myself  to  be  both  Cruel  and  Superstitious,  the  Jews 
would  never  have  escaped  from  the  Bondage  of  the  Egyptians. 

Diogenes 

Perhaps  that  would  not  have  been  an  overwhelming  Disaster. 
But,  in  truth,  you  are  right.  There  is  no  viler  Profession  than 
the  Government  of  Nations.  He  who  dreams  that  he  can  lead 
a  great  Crowd  of  Fools  without  a  great  Store  of  Knavery  is  a 
Fool  himself. 

Mr.  Loke 

Are  not  you  too  hasty?  Does  not  History  show  that  there 
have  been  great  Rulers  who  were  good  Men?  Solon,  Henry  of 
Navarre,  and  Milord  Somers  were  certainly  not  Fools,  and  yet 
I  am  unwilling  to  believe  that  they  were  Knaves  either. 

Moses 
No,  not  Knaves;  but  Dissemblers.    In  their  different  degrees, 


144  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

they  all  juggled;  but  'twas  not  because  Jugglery  pleas'd  'em; 
'twas  because  Men  cannot  be  governed  without  it. 

Mr.  Loke 

I  would  be  happy  to  try  the  Experiment.  If  Men  were  told 
the  Truth,  might  they  not  believe  it?  If  the  Opportunity  of 
Virtue  and  Wisdom  is  never  to  be  offer 'd  'em,  how  can  we  be 
sure  that  they  would  not  be  willing  to  take  it?  Let  Rulers  be 
bold  and  honest,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  Folly  of  their  Peoples 
will  disappear. 

Diogenes 
A  pretty  phantastick  Vision!     But  History  is  against  you. 

Moses 
And  Prophecy. 

Diogenes 

And  Common  Observation.  Look  at  the  World  at  this  mo- 
ment, and  what  do  we  see?  It  is  as  it  has  always  been,  and 
always  will  be.  So  long  as  it  endures,  the  World  will  continue 
to  be  rul'd  by  Cajolery,  by  Injustice,  and  by  Imposture. 

Mr.  Loke 

If  that  be  so,  I  must  take  leave  to  lament  the  Destiny  of  the 
Human  Race. 


VOLTAIRE'S  TRAGEDIES 


VOLTAIRE'S  TRAGEDIES 

The  historian  of  Literature  is  little  more  than  a  historian 
of  exploded  reputations.  What  has  he  to  do  with  Shake- 
speare, with  Dante,  with  Sophocles?  Has  he  entered  into 
the  springs  of  the  sea?  Or  has  he  walked  in  the  search  of  the 
depth?  The  great  fixed  luminaries  of  the  firmament  of  Let- 
ters dazzle  his  optic  glass;  and  he  can  hardly  hope  to  do  more 
than  record  their  presence,  and  admire  their  splendours  with 
the  eyes  of  an  ordinary  mortal.  His  business  is  with  the 
succeeding  ages  of  men,  not  with  all  time;  but  Hyperion 
might  have  been  written  on  the  morrow  of  Salamis,  and  the 
Odes  of  Pindar  dedicated  to  George  the  Fourth.  The  hter- 
ary  historian  must  rove  in  other  hunting  grounds.  He  is  the 
geologist  of  literature,  whose  study  lies  among  the  buried 
strata  of  forgotten  generations,  among  the  fossil  remnants 
of  the  past.  The  great  men  with  whom  he  must  deal  are  the 
great  men  who  are  no  longer  great — mammoths  and  ichthyo- 
sauri kindly  preserved  to  us,  among  the  siftings  of  so  many 
epochs,  by  the  impartial  benignity  of  Time.  It  is  for  him 
to  unravel  the  jokes  of  Erasmus,  and  to  be  at  home  among 
the  platitudes  of  Cicero.  It  is  for  him  to  sit  up  all  night 
with  the  spectral  heroes  of  B5n-on;  it  is  for  him  to  exchange 
innumerable  alexandrines  with  the  faded  heroines  of  Voltaire. 
The  great  potentate  of  the  eighteenth  century  has  suffered 
cruelly  indeed  at  the  hands  of  posterity.  Everyone,  it  is 
true,  has  heard  of  him;  but  who  has  read  him?    It  is  by  his 

147 


148  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

name  that  ye  shall  know  him,  and  not  by  his  works.  With 
the  exception  of  his  letters,  of  Candide,  of  Akakia,  and  of  a 
few  other  of  his  shorter  pieces,  the  vast  mass  of  his  produc- 
tions has  been  already  consigned  to  oblivion.  How  many 
persons  now  living  have  travelled  through  La  Henriade  or 
La  Pucelle?  How  many  have  so  much  as  glanced  at  the  im- 
posing volumes  of  U Esprit  des  Moeurs?  Zadig  and  Zaire, 
Merope  and  Charles  XII.  still  linger,  perhaps,  in  the  school- 
room; but  what  has  become  of  Oreste,  and  of  Mahomet,  and 
of  Alzire?    Ou  sont  les  neiges  d'antan? 

Though  Voltaire's  reputation  now  rests  mainly  on  his 
achievements  as  a  precursor  of  the  Revolution,  to  the  eight- 
eenth century  he  was  as  much  a  poet  as  a  reformer.  The 
whole  of  Europe  beheld  at  Ferney  the  oracle,  not  only  of 
philosophy,  but  of  good  taste;  for  thirty  years  every  scrib- 
bler, every  rising  genius,  and  every  crowned  head  submit- 
ted his  verses  to  the  censure  of  Voltaire;  Voltaire's  plays 
were  performed  before  crowded  houses;  his  epic  was  pro- 
nounced superior  to  Homer's,  Virgil's,  and  Milton's;  his 
epigrams  were  transcribed  by  every  letter-writer,  and  got  by 
heart  by  every  wit.  Nothing,  perhaps,  shows  more  clearly 
the  gulf  which  divides  us  from  our  ancestors  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  than  a  comparison  between  our  thoughts  and  their 
thoughts,  between  our  feelings  and  their  feelings,  with  regard 
to  one  and  the  same  thing — a  tragedy  by  Voltaire.  For  us, 
as  we  take  down  the  dustiest  volume  in  our  bookshelf,  as  we 
open  it  vaguely  at  some  intolerable  tirade,  as  we  make  an 
effort  to  labour  through  the  procession  of  pompous  common- 
places which  meets  our  eyes,  as  we  abandon  the  task  in 
despair,  and  hastily  return  the  book  to  its  forgotten  corner — 


VOLTAIRE'S  TRAGEDIES  149 

to  us  it  is  well-nigh  impossible  to  imagine  the  scene  of  charm- 
ing brilliance  which,  five  generations  since,  the  same  words 
must  have  conjured  up.  The  splendid  gaiety,  the  refined  ex- 
citement, the  pathos,  the  wit,  the  passion — all  these  things 
have  vanished  as  completely  from  our  perceptions  as  the 
candles,  the  powder,  the  looking-glasses,  and  the  brocades, 
among  which  they  moved  and  had  their  being.  It  may  be 
instructive,  or  at  least  entertaining,  to  examine  one  of  these 
forgotten  master-pieces  a  little  more  closely;  and  we  may 
do  so  with  the  less  hesitation,  since  we  shall  only  be  follow- 
ing in  the  footsteps  of  Voltaire  himself.  His  examination  of 
Hamlet  affords  a  precedent  which  is  particularly  applicable, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  same  interval  of  time  divided  him 
from  Shakespeare  as  that  which  divides  ourselves  from  him. 
One  point  of  difference,  indeed,  does  exist  between  the  rela- 
tive positions  of  the  two  authors.  Voltaire,  in  his  study  of 
Shakespeare,  was  dealing  with  a  living,  and  a  growing  force; 
our  interest  in  the  dramas  of  Voltaire  is  solely  an  antiquarian 
interest.  At  the  present  moment,^  a  literal  translation  of 
King  Lear  is  drawing  full  houses  at  the  Theatre  Antoine. 
As  a  rule  it  is  rash  to  prophesy;  but,  if  that  rule  has  any 
exceptions,  this  is  certainly  one  of  them — a  hundred  years 
hence  a  literal  translation  of  Zaire  will  not  be  holding  the 
English  boards. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  appreciate  the  best,  or  to  expose 
the  worst,  of  Voltaire's  tragedies.  Our  object  is  to  review 
some  specimen  of  what  would  have  been  recognised  by  his 
contemporaries  as  representative  of  the  average  flight  of  his 
genius.    Such  a  specimen  is  to  be  found  in  Alzire,  ou  Les 

1  April,   1905. 


I50  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Amiricains,  first  produced  with  great  success  in  1736,  when 
Voltaire  was  forty-two  years  of  age  and  his  fame  as  a 
dramatist  already  well  established. 

Act  I. — The  scene  is  laid  in  Lima,  the  capital  of  Peru, 
some  years  after  the  Spanish  conquest  of  America.  When 
the  play  opens,  Don  Gusman,  a  Spanish  grandee,  has  just 
succeeded  his  father,  Don  Alvarez,  in  the  Governorship  of 
Peru.  The  rule  of  Don  Alvarez  had  been  beneficent  and 
just;  he  had  spent  his  life  in  endeavouring  to  soften  the 
cruelty  of  his  countrymen;  and  his  only  remaining  wish  was 
to  see  his  son  carry  on  the  work  which  he  had  begun.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  Don  Gusman's  temperament  was  the 
very  opposite  of  his  father's;  he  was  tyrannical,  harsh,  head- 
strong, and  bigoted. 

L'Americain  farouche  est  un  monstre  sauvage 
Qui  mord  en  fremissant  le  frein  del'esclavage  .  .  . 
Tout  pouvoir,  en  un  mot,  perit  par  1 'indulgence, 
Et  la  severite  produit  robeissance. 

Such  were  the  cruel  maxims  of  his  government — maxims 
which  he  was  only  too  ready  to  put  into  practice.  It  was  in 
vain  that  Don  Alvarez  reminded  his  son  that  the  true  Chris- 
tian returns  good  for  evil,  and  that,  as  he  epigrammatically 
put  it,  "  Le  vrai  Dieu,  mon  fils,  est  un  Dieu  qui  pardonne." 
To  enforce  his  argument,  the  good  old  man  told  the  story  of 
how  his  own  life  had  been  spared  by  a  virtuous  American, 
who,  as  he  said,  "  au  lieu  de  me  frapper,  embrassa  mes 
genoux."  But  Don  Gusman  remained  unmoved  by  such  nar- 
ratives, though  he  admitted  that  there  was  one  consideration 
which  impelled  him  to  adopt  a  more  lenient  policy.    He  was 


VOLTAIRE'S  TRAGEDIES  151 

in  love  with  Alzire,  Alzire  the  young  and  beautiful  daughter 
of  Monteze,  who  had  ruled  in  Lima  before  the  coming  of  the 
Spaniards.  "Je  I'aime,  je  I'avoue,"  said  Gusman  to  his 
father,  "  et  plus  que  je  ne  veux."  With  these  words,  the 
dominating  situation  of  the  play  becomes  plain  to  the  spec- 
tator. The  wicked  Spanish  Governor  is  in  love  with  the  vir- 
tuous American  princess.  From  such  a  state  of  affairs,  what 
interesting  and  romantic  developments  may  not  follow? 
Alzire,  we  are  not  surprised  to  learn,  still  fondly  cherished 
the  memory  of  a  Peruvian  prince,  who  had  been  slain  in  an 
attempt  to  rescue  his  country  from  the  tyranny  of  Don  Gus- 
man. Yet,  for  the  sake  of  Monteze,  her  ambitious  and 
scheming  father,  she  consented  to  give  her  hand  to  the  Gov- 
ernor. She  consented;  but,  even  as  she  did  so,  she  was  still 
faithful  to  Zamore.  "  Sa  foi  me  fut  promise,"  she  declared 
to  Don  Gusman,  "  il  eut  pour  moi  des  charmes." 

II  m'aima:  son  trepas  me  coute  encore  des  larmes: 
Vous,  loin  d'oser  ici  condamner  ma  douleur, 
Jugez  de  ma  Constance,  et  connaissez  mon  cceur. 

The  ruthless  Don  did  not  allow  these  pathetic  considera- 
tions to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  wishes,  and  gave  orders  that 
the  wedding  ceremony  should  be  immediately  performed. 
But,  at  the  very  moment  of  his  apparent  triumph,  the  way 
was  being  prepared  for  the  overthrow  of  all  his  hopes. 

Act  II. — It  was  only  natural  to  expect  that  a  heroine 
affianced  to  a  villain  should  turn  out  to  be  in  love  with  a 
hero.  The  hero  adored  by  Alzire  had,  it  is  true,  perished; 
but  then  what  could  be  more  natural  than  his  resurrection? 
The  noble  Zamore  was  not  dead;  he  had  escaped  with  his 


152  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

life  from  the  torture-chamber  of  Don  Gusman,  had  returned 
to  avenge  himself,  had  been  immediately  apprehended,  and 
was  lying  imprisoned  in  the  lowest  dungeon  of  the  castle, 
while  his  beloved  princess  was  celebrating  her  nuptials  with 
his  deadly  foe. 

In  this  distressing  situation,  he  was  visited  by  the  ven- 
erable Alvarez,  who  had  persuaded  his  son  to  grant  him 
an  order  for  the  prisoner's  release.  In  the  gloom  of  the 
dungeon,  it  was  at  first  difficult  to  distinguish  the  features 
of  Zamore;  but  the  old  man  at  last  discovered  that  he  was 
addressing  the  very  American  who,  so  many  years  ago,  in- 
stead of  hitting  him,  had  embraced  his  knees.  He  was 
overwhelmed  by  this  extraordinary  coincidence.  "  Ap- 
proach. O  heaven!  O  Providence!  It  is  he,  behold  the 
object  of  my  gratitude.  .  .  .  My  benefactor!  My  son!  " 
But  let  us  not  pry  further  into  so  affecting  a  passage;  it 
is  sufficient  to  state  that  Don  Alvarez,  after  promising  his 
protection  to  Zamore,  hurried  off  to  relate  this  remarkable 
occurrence  to  his  son,  the  Governor. 

Act  III. — Meanwhile,  Alzire  had  been  married.  But  she 
still  could  not  forget  her  Peruvian  lover.  While  she  was 
lamenting  her  fate,  and  imploring  the  forgiveness  of  the 
shade  of  Zamore,  she  was  informed  that  a  released  prisoner 
begged  a  private  interview.  "  Admit  him."  He  was  ad- 
mitted. "Heaven!  Such  were  his  features,  his  gait,  his 
voice:  Zamore!  "  She  falls  into  the  arms  of  her  confidante. 
"  Je  succombe;  a  peine  je  respire." 

Zamore:  Reconnais  ton  amant. 

Alzire:  Zamore  aux  pieds  d' Alzire! 

Est-ce  una  illusion? 


VOLTAIRE'S  TRAGEDIES  153 

It  was  no  illusion;  and  the  unfortunate  princess  was 
obliged  to  confess  to  her  lover  that  she  was  already  married 
to  Don  Gusman.  Zamore  was  at  first  unable  to  grasp  the 
horrible  truth,  and,  while  he  was  still  struggling  with  his 
conflicting  emotions,  the  door  was  flung  open,  and  Don 
Gusman,  accompanied  by  his  father,  entered  the  room. 

A  double  recognition  followed.  Zamore  was  no  less  hor- 
rified to  behold  in  Don  Gusman  the  son  of  the  venerable 
Alvarez,  than  Don  Gusman  was  infuriated  at  discovering 
that  the  prisoner  to  whose  release  he  had  consented  was 
no  other  than  Zamore.  When  the  first  shock  of  surprise 
was  over,  the  Peruvian  hero  violently  insulted  his  enemy, 
and  upbraided  him  with  the  tortures  he  had  inflicted.  The 
Governor  replied  by  ordering  the  instant  execution  of  the 
prince.  It  was  in  vain  that  Don  Alvarez  reminded  his 
son  of  Zamore's  magnanimity;  it  was  in  vain  that  Alzire 
herself  offered  to  sacrifice  her  life  for  that  of  her  lover. 
Zamore  was  dragged  from  the  apartment;  and  Alzire  and 
Don  Alvarez  were  left  alone  to  bewail  the  fate  of  the  Peru- 
vian hero.  Yet  some  faint  hopes  still  lingered  in  the  old 
man's  breast.  "  Gusman  fut  inhumain,"  he  admitted,  "  je 
le  sais,  j'en  fremis; 

Mais  il  est  ton  epoux,  il  t'aime,  il  est  mon  fils: 
Son  ame  a  la  pitie  se  pent  ouvrir  encore. 

"Helas!  "  (replied  Alzire),  "que  n'etes-vous  le  pere  de 
Zamore!  " 

Act  IV. — Even  Don  Gusman's  heart  was,  in  fact,  unable 
to  steel  itself  entirely  against  the  prayers  and  tears  of  his 
father  and  his  wife;   and  he  consented  to  allow  a  brief 


154  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

respite  to  Zamore's  execution.  Alzire  was  not  slow  to  seize 
this  opportunity  of  doing  her  lover  a  good  turn;  for  she 
immediately  obtained  his  release  by  the  ingenious  stratagem 
of  bribing  the  warder  of  the  dungeon.  Zamore  was  free. 
But  alas!  Alzire  was  not;  was  she  not  wedded  to  the  wicked 
Gusman?  Her  lover's  expostulations  fell  on  unheeding  ears. 
What  mattered  it  that  her  marriage  vow  had  been  sworn  be- 
fore an  alien  God?  "  J'ai  promis;  il  suffit;  il  n'importe  a 
quel  dieu!  " 

Zamore:  Ta  promesse  est  un  crime;  elle  est  ma  parte;  adieu. 

Perissent  tes  serments  et  ton  Dieu  que  j'abhorrel 
Alzire:    Arrete;  quels  adieuxl  arrete,  cher  Zamore! 

But  the  prince  tore  himself  away,  with  no  further  fare- 
well upon  his  lips  than  an  oath  to  be  revenged  upon  the 
Governor.  Alzire,  perplexed,  deserted,  terrified,  tortured 
by  remorse,  agitated  by  passion,  turned  for  comfort  to  that 
God,  who,  she  could  not  but  believe,  was,  in  some  mys- 
terious way,  the  Father  of  All. 

Great  God,  lead  Zamore  in  safety  through  the  desert  places. 
...  Ah!  can  it  be  true  that  thou  art  but  the  Deity  of  another 
universe?  Have  the  Europeans  alone  the  right  to  please  thee? 
Art  thou  after  all  the  tyrant  of  one  world  and  the  father  of 
another?  .  .  .No!  The  conquerors  and  the  conquered,  miser- 
able mortals  as  they  are,  all  are  equally  the  work  of  thy 
hands.  .  .  . 

Her  reverie  was  interrupted  by  an  appalling  sound.  She 
heard  shrieks;  she  heard  a  cry  of  "Zamore!  "  And  her 
confidante,  rushing  in,  confusedly  informed  her  that  her 
lover  was  in  peril  of  his  life. 


VOLTAIRE'S  TRAGEDIES  155 

Ah,  chere  Emire  [she  exclaimed],  allons  le  secourir! 
Emire:    Que  pouvez-vous,  Madame?     O  Ciel! 
Alzire:  Je  puis  mourir. 

Hardly  was  the  epigram  out  of  her  mouth,  when  the  door 
opened,  and  an  emissary  of  Don  Gusman  announced  to  her 
that  she  must  consider  herself  under  arrest.  She  demanded 
an  explanation  in  vain,  and  was  immediately  removed  to  the 
lowest  dungeon. 

Act  V. — It  was  not  long  before  the  unfortunate  princess 
learnt  the  reason  of  her  arrest.  Zamore,  she  was  informed, 
had  rushed  straight  from  her  apartment  into  the  presence 
of  Don  Gusman,  and  had  plunged  a  dagger  into  his  enemy's 
breast.  The  hero  had  then  turned  to  Don  Alvarez  and,  with 
perfect  tranquillity,  had  offered  him  the  bloodstained 
poniard. 

J'ai  fait  ce  que  j'ai  du,  j'ai  venge  mon  injure; 
Pais  ton  devoir,  dit-il,  et  venge  la  nature. 

Before  Don  Alvarez  could  reply  to  this  appeal,  Zamore 
had  been  haled  off  by  the  enraged  soldiery  before  the  Coun- 
cil of  Grandees.  Don  Gusman  had  been  mortally  wounded; 
and  the  Council  proceeded  at  once  to  condemn  to  death, 
not  only  Zamore,  but  also  Alzire,  who,  they  found,  had 
been  guilty  of  complicity  in  the  murder.  It  was  the  un- 
pleasant duty  of  Don  Alvarez  to  announce  to  the  prisoners 
the  Council's  sentence.    He  did  so  in  the  following  manner: 

Good  God,  what  a  mixture  of  tenderness  and  horror!  My  own 
liberator  is  the  assassin  of  my  son.  Zamore!  .  .  .  Yes,  it  is  to 
thee  that  I  owe  this  life  which  I  detest;  how  dearly  didst  thou 
sell  me  that  fatal  gift.  ...  I  am  a  father,  but  I  am  also  a  man; 
and,  in  spite  of  thy  fury,  in  spite  of  the  voice  of  that  blood  which 


156  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

demands  vengeance  from  my  agitated  soul,  I  can  still  hear  the 
voice  of  thy  benefactions.  And  thou,  who  wast  my  daughter, 
thou  whom  in  our  misery  I  yet  call  by  a  name  which  makes  our 
tears  to  flow,  ah!  how  far  is  it  from  thy  father's  wishes  to  add 
to  the  agony  which  he  already  feels  the  horrible  pleasure  of 
vengeance.  I  must  lose,  by  an  unheard-of  catastrophe,  at  once 
my  liberator,  my  daughter,  and  my  son.  The  Council  has  sen- 
tenced you  to  death. 

Upon  one  condition,  however,  and  upon  one  alone,  the 
lives  of  the  culprits  were  to  be  spared — that  of  Zamore's 
conversion  to  Christianity.  What  need  is  there  to  say  that 
the  noble  Peruvians  did  not  hesitate  for  a  moment?  "  Death, 
rather  than  dishonour!  "  exclaimed  Zamore,  while  Alzire 
added  some  elegant  couplets  upon  the  moral  degradation 
entailed  by  hypocritical  conversion.  Don  Alvarez  was  in 
complete  despair,  and  was  just  beginning  to  make  another 
speech,  when  Don  Gusman,  with  the  pallor  of  death  upon  his 
features,  was  carried  into  the  room.  The  implacable  Gov- 
ernor was  about  to  utter  his  last  words.  Alzire  was  re- 
signed; Alvarez  was  plunged  in  misery;  Zamore  was  in- 
domitable to  the  last.  But  lo!  when  the  Governor  spoke, 
it  was  seen  at  once  that  an  extraordinary  change  had  come 
over  his  mind.  He  was  no  longer  proud,  he  was  no  longer 
cruel,  he  was  no  longer  unforgiving;  he  was  kind,  humble, 
and  polite;  in  short,  he  had  repented.  Everybody  was  par- 
doned, and  everybody  recognised  the  truth  of  Christianity. 
And  their  faith  was  particularly  strengthened  when  Don 
Gusman,  invoking  a  final  blessing  upon  Alzire  and  Zamore, 
expired  in  the  arms  of  Don  Alvarez.  For  thus  were  the 
guilty  punished,  and  the  virtuous  rewarded.  The  noble 
Zamore,  who  had  murdered  his  enemy  in  cold  blood,  and 


VOLTAIRE'S  TRAGEDIES  157 

the  gentle  Alzire  who,  after  bribing  a  sentry,  had  allowed 
her  lover  to  do  away  with  her  husband,  lived  happily  ever 
afterwards.  That  they  were  able  to  do  so  was  owing  entirely 
to  the  efforts  of  the  wicked  Don  Gusman;  and  the  wicked 
Don  Gusman  very  properly  descended  to  the  grave. 

Such  is  the  tragedy  of  Alzire,  which,  it  may  be  well  to 
repeat,  was  in  its  day  one  of  the  most  applauded  of  its 
author's  productions.  It  was  upon  the  strength  of  works 
of  this  kind  that  his  contemporaries  recognised  Voltaire's 
right  to  be  ranked  in  a  sort  of  dramatic  triumvirate,  side 
by  side  with  his  great  predecessors,  Corneille  and  Racine. 
With  Racine,  especially,  Voltaire  was  constantly  coupled; 
and  it  is  clear  that  he  himself  firmly  believed  that  the  author 
of  Alzire  was  a  worthy  successor  of  the  author  of  Athalie. 
At  first  sight,  indeed,  the  resemblance  between  the  two  dram- 
atists is  obvious  enough;  but  a  closer  inspection  reveals  an 
ocean  of  differences  too  vast  to  be  spanned  by  any  super- 
ficial likeness. 

A  careless  reader  is  apt  to  dismiss  the  tragedies  of  Racine 
as  mere  fours  de  force;  and,  in  one  sense,  the  careless  reader 
is  right.  For,  as  mere  displays  of  technical  skill,  those  works 
are  certainly  unsurpassed  in  the  whole  range  of  literature. 
But  the  notion  of  "  a  mere  tour  de  force  "  carries  with  it 
something  more  than  the  idea  of  technical  perfection;  for  it 
denotes,  not  simply  a  work  which  is  technically  perfect,  but 
a  work  which  is  technically  perfect  and  nothing  more.  The 
problem  before  a  writer  of  Chants  Royales  is  to  overcome 
certain  technical  difficulties  of  rh5mie  and  rh5dJim;  he  per- 
forms his  tour  de  force,  the  difficulties  are  overcome,  and 
his  task  is  accomplished.    But  Racine's  problem  was  very 


158  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

different.  The  technical  restrictions  he  laboured  under  were 
incredibly  great;  his  vocabulary  was  cribbed,  his  versifica- 
tion was  cabined,  his  whole  power  of  dramatic  movement 
was  scrupulously  confined;  conventional  rules  of  every  con- 
ceivable denomination  hurried  out  to  restrain  his  genius, 
with  the  alacrity  of  Lilliputians  pegging  down  a  Gulliver; 
wherever  he  turned  he  was  met  by  a  hiatus  or  a  pitfall, 
a  blind-alley  or  a  mot  has.  But  his  triumph  was  not  simply 
the  conquest  of  these  refractory  creatures;  it  was  something 
much  more  astonishing.  It  was  the  creation,  in  spite  of 
them,  nay,  by  their  very  aid,  of  a  glowing,  living,  soaring, 
and  enchanting  work  of  art.  To  have  brought  about  this 
amazing  combination,  to  have  erected,  upon  a  structure  of 
Alexandrines,  of  Unities,  of  Noble  Personages,  of  stilted  dic- 
tion, of  the  whole  intolerable  paraphernalia  of  the  Classical 
stage,  an  edifice  of  subtle  psychology,  of  exquisite  poetry, 
of  overwhelming  passion — that  is  a  tour  de  force  whose 
achievement  entitles  Jean  Racine  to  a  place  among  the  very 
few  consummate  artists  of  the  world, 

Voltaire,  unfortunately,  was  neither  a  poet  nor  a  psychol- 
ogist; and,  when  he  took  up  the  mantle  of  Racine,  he  put 
it,  not  upon  a  human  being,  but  upon  a  tailor's  block.  To 
change  the  metaphor,  Racine's  work  resembled  one  of  those 
elaborate  paper  transparencies  which  delighted  our  grand- 
mothers, illuminated  from  within  so  as  to  present  a  charm- 
ing tinted  picture  with  varying  degrees  of  shadow  and  of 
light.  Voltaire  was  able  to  make  the  transparency,  but  he 
never  could  light  the  candle;  and  the  only  result  of  his 
efforts  was  some  sticky  pieces  of  paper,  cut  into  curious 
shapes,  and  roughly  daubed  with  colour.    To  take  only  one 


VOLTAIRE'S  TRAGEDIES  159 

instance,  his  diction  is  the  very  echo  of  Racine's.  There  are 
the  same  pompous  phrases,  the  same  inversions,  the  same 
stereotyped  list  of  similes,  the  same  poor  bedraggled  com- 
pany of  words.  It  is  amusing  to  note  the  exclamations  which 
rise  to  the  lips  of  Voltaire's  characters  in  moments  of  ex- 
treme excitement — Qu'entends-je?  Que  vois-je?  Ou  suis-je? 
Grands  Dieuxf  Ah,  e'en  est  trop,  Seigneur  I  Juste  Ciell 
Sauve-toi  de  ces  lieuxl  Madame,  quelle  horreur  .  .  .  &c. 
And  it  is  amazing  to  discover  that  these  are  the  very  phrases 
with  which  Racine  has  managed  to  express  all  the  violence 
of  human  terror,  and  rage,  and  love.  Voltaire  at  his  best 
never  rises  above  the  standard  of  a  sixth-form  boy  writing 
hexameters  in  the  style  of  Virgil;  and,  at  his  worst,  he 
certainly  falls  within  measureable  distance  of  a  flogging. 
He  is  capable,  for  instance,  of  writing  lines  as  bad  as  the 
second  of  this  couplet — 

C'est  ce  meme  guerrier  dont  la  main  tutelaire, 
De  Gusman,  voire  epoux,  sauva,  dit-on,  le  pere. 

or  as 

Qui  les  font  pour  un  temps  rentrer  tous  en  eux-memes, 
or 

Vous  comprenez,  seigneur,  que  je  ne  comprends  pas. 

Voltaire's  most  striking  expressions  are  too  often  bor- 
rowed from  his  predecessors.  Alzire's  "  Je  puis  mourir,"  for 
instance,  is  an  obvious  reminiscence  of  the  "  Qu'il  mourut!  '* 
of  le  vieil  Horace;  and  the  cloven  hoof  is  shown  clearly 
enough  by  the  "  O  ciel !  "  with  which  Alzire's  confidante 
manages  to  fill  out  the  rest  of  the  line.    Many  of  these 


i6o  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

blemishes  are,  doubtless,  the  outcome  of  simple  careless- 
ness; for  Voltaire  was  too  busy  a  man  to  give  over-much 
time  to  his  plays.  "  This  tragedy  was  the  work  of  six  days," 
he  wrote  to  d'Alembert,  enclosing  Olympic.  "  You  should 
not  have  rested  on  the  seventh,"  was  d'Alembert's  reply. 
But,  on  the  whole,  Voltaire's  verses  succeed  in  keeping  up 
to  a  high  level  of  medocrity;  they  are  the  verses,  in  fact, 
of  a  very  clever  man.  It  is  when  his  cleverness  is  out  of 
its  depth,  that  he  most  palpably  fails.  A  human  being  by 
Voltaire  bears  the  same  relation  to  a  real  human  being  that 
stage  scenery  bears  to  a  real  landscape;  it  can  only  be  looked 
at  from  in  front.  The  curtain  rises,  and  his  villains  and  his 
heroes,  his  good  old  men  and  his  exquisite  princesses,  dis- 
play for  a  moment  their  one  thin  surface  to  the  spectator;' 
the  curtain  falls,  and  they  are  all  put  back  into  their  box. 
The  glance  which  the  reader  has  taken  into  the  little  case 
labelled  Alzire  has  perhaps  given  him  a  sufficient  notion  of 
these  queer  discarded  marionettes. 

Voltaire's  dramatic  efforts  were  hampered  by  one  further 
unfortunate  incapacity;  he  was  almost  completely  devoid  of 
the  dramatic  sense.  It  is  only  possible  to  write  good  plays 
without  the  power  of  character-drawing,  upon  one  condition 
— that  of  possessing  the  power  of  creating  dramatic  situa- 
tions. The  Oedipus  Tyrannus  of  Sophocles,  for  instance,  is 
not  a  tragedy  of  character;  and  its  vast  crescendo  of  horror 
is  produced  by  a  dramatic  treatment  of  situation,  not  of 
persons.  One  of  the  principal  elements  in  this  stupendous 
example  of  the  manipulation  of  a  great  dramatic  theme  has 
been  pointed  out  by  Voltaire  himself.  The  guilt  of  Oedipus, 
he  says,  becomes  known  to  the  audience  very  early  in  the 


VOLTAIRE'S  TRAGEDIES  i6i 

play;  and,  when  the  denouement  at  last  arrives,  it  comes  as 
a  shock,  not  to  the  audience,  but  to  the  King.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  Voltaire  has  put  his  finger  upon  the  very 
centre  of  those  underlying  causes  which  make  the  Oedipus 
perhaps  the  most  awful  of  tragedies.  To  know  the  hideous 
truth,  to  watch  its  gradual  dawn  upon  one  after  another  of 
the  characters,  to  see  Oedipus  at  last  alone  in  ignorance,  to 
recognise  clearly  that  he  too  must  know,  to  witness  his  strug- 
gles, his  distraction,  his  growing  terror,  and,  at  the  inevitable 
moment,  the  appalling  revelation — few  things  can  be  more 
terrible  than  this.  But  Voltaire's  comment  upon  the  master- 
stroke by  which  such  an  effect  has  been  obtained  illustrates, 
in  a  remarkable  way,  his  own  sense  of  the  dramatic.  "  Nou- 
velle  preuve,"  he  remarks,  "  que  Sophocle  n'avait  pas  per- 
fectionne  son  art." 

More  detailed  evidence  of  Voltaire's  utter  lack  of  dramatic 
insight  is  to  be  found,  of  course,  in  his  criticisms  of  Shake- 
speare. Throughout  these,  what  is  particularly  striking  is 
the  manner  in  which  Voltaire  seems  able  to  get  into  such 
intimate  contact  with  his  great  predecessor,  and  yet  to  re- 
main as  absolutely  unaffected  by  him  as  Shakespeare  himself 
was  by  Voltaire.  It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  further  upon 
so  hackneyed  a  subject;  but  one  instance  may  be  given 
of  the  lengths  to  which  this  dramatic  insensibility  of  Vol- 
taire's was  able  to  go — ^his  adaptation  of  Julius  CcBsar  for 
the  French  stage.  A  comparison  of  the  two  pieces  should 
be  made  by  any  one  who  wishes  to  realise  fully,  not  only 
the  degradation  of  the  copy,  but  the  excellence  of  the  origi- 
nal. Particular  attention  should  be  paid  to  the  transmuta- 
tion of  Antony's  funeral  oration  into  French  alexandrines. 


i62  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

In  Voltaire's  version,  the  climax  of  the  speech  is  reached 
in  the  following  passage;  it  is  an  excellent  sample  of  the 
fatuity  of  the  whole  of  his  concocted  rigmarole: — 

Antoine:  Brutus  .  .  .  ou  suis-je?  O  ciel!  O  crime!  O 
barbarie! 

Chers  amis,  je  succombe;  et  mes  sens  interdits  .  .  . 

Brutus,  son  assassin!  .  .  .  ce  monstre  etait  son  fils! 
RoMAiNs:  Ah  dieux! 

If  Voltaire's  demerits  are  obvious  enough  to  our  eyes, 
his  merits  were  equally  clear  to  his  contemporaries,  whose 
vision  of  them  was  not  perplexed  and  retarded  by  the  con- 
ventions of  another  age.  The  weight  of  a  reigning  conven- 
tion is  like  the  weight  of  the  atmosphere — it  is  so  universal 
that  no  one  feels  it;  and  an  eighteenth-century  audience  came 
to  a  performance  of  Alzire  unconscious  of  the  burden  of  the 
Classical  rules.  They  found  instead  an  animated  procession 
of  events,  of  scenes  just  long  enough  to  be  amusing  and  not 
too  long  to  be  dull,  of  startling  incidents,  of  happy  mots. 
They  were  dazzled  by  an  easy  display  of  cheap  brilliance, 
and  cheap  philosophy,  and  cheap  sentiment,  which  it  was 
very  difficult  to  distinguish  from  the  real  thing,  at  such  a  dis- 
tance, and  under  artificial  light.  When,  in  Merope,  one  saw 
La  Dumesnil;  "  lorsque,"  to  quote  Voltaire  himself,  "  les 
yeux  egares,  la  voix  entrecoupee,  levant  une  main  tremblante, 
elle  allait  immoler  son  propre  fils;  quand  Narbas  I'arreta; 
quand,  laissant  tomber  son  poignard,  on  la  vii  s  evanouir  entre 
les  bras  de  ses  femmes,  et  qu'elle  sortit  de  cet  etat  de  mort 
avec  les  transports  d'une  mere;  lorsque,  ensuite,  s'elangant 
aux  yeux  de  Polyphonte,  traversant  en  un  clin  d'oeil  tout  le 
theatre,  les  larmes  dans  les  yeux,  la  paleur  sur  le  front,  les 


VOLTAIRE'S  TRAGEDIES  163 

sanglots  a  la  bouche,  les  bras  etendus,  elle  s'ecria:  '  Barbara, 
il  est  mon  fils!  ' " — how,  face  to  face  with  splendours  such 
as  these,  could  one  question  for  a  moment  the  purity  of  the 
gem  from  which  they  sparkled?  Alas!  to  us,  who  know 
not  La  Dumesnil,  to  us  whose  Mirope  is  nothing  more  than 
a  little  sediment  of  print,  the  precious  stone  of  our  fore- 
fathers has  turned  out  to  be  a  simple  piece  of  paste.  Its 
glittering  was  the  outcome  of  no  inward  fire,  but  of  a  certain 
adroitness  in  the  manufacture;  to  use  our  modern  phrase- 
ology, Voltaire  was  able  to  make  up  for  his  lack  of  genius 
by  a  thorough  knowledge  of  "  technique,"  and  a  great  deal 
of  "  go." 

And  to  such  titles  of  praise  let  us  not  dispute  his  right. 
His  vivacity,  indeed,  actually  went  so  far  as  to  make  him 
something  of  an  innovator.  He  introduced  new  and  im- 
posing spectacular  effects;  he  ventured  to  write  tragedies 
in  which  no  persons  of  royal  blood  made  their  appearance; 
he  was  so  bold  as  to  rh5mie  "  pere  "  with  "  terre."  The  wild 
diversity  of  his  incidents  shows  a  trend  towards  the  romantic, 
which,  doubtless,  under  happier  influences,  would  have  led 
him  much  further  along  the  primrose  path  which  ended  in 
the  bonfire  of  1830. 

But  it  was  his  misfortune  to  be  for  ever  clogged  by  a 
tradition  of  decorous  restraint;  so  that  the  effect  of  his  plays 
is  as  anomalous  as  would  be — let  us  say — that  of  a  shilling 
shocker  written  by  Miss  Yonge.  His  heroines  go  mad  in 
epigrams,  while  his  villains  commit  murder  in  inversions. 
Amid  the  hurly-burly  of  artificiality,  it  was  all  his  clever- 
ness could  do  to  keep  its  head  to  the  wind;  and  he  was  only 
able  to  remain  afloat  at  all  by  throwing  overboard  his  hu- 


i64  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

mour.  The  Classical  tradition  has  to  answer  for  many  sins; 
perhaps  its  most  infamous  achievement  was  that  it  prevented 
Moliere  from  being  a  great  tragedian.  But  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  its  most  astonishing  one  was  to  have  taken — 
if  only  for  some  scattered  moments — the  sense  of  the  ridicu- 
lous from  Voltaire. 


1905. 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK 
THE  GREAT 


FREDERICK  THE  GREAT 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK 
THE  GREAT 

At  the  present  time/  when  it  is  so  difficult  to  think  of  any- 
thing but  of  what  is  and  what  will  be,  it  may  yet  be  worth 
while  to  cast  occasionally  a  glance  backward  at  what  was. 
Such  glances  may  at  least  prove  to  have  the  humble  merit 
of  being  entertaining:  they  may  even  be  instructive  as  well. 
Certainly  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  forget  that  Frederick  the 
Great  once  lived  in  Germany.  Nor  is  it  altogether  useless 
to  remember  that  a  curious  old  gentleman,  extremely  thin, 
extremely  active,  and  heavily  bewigged,  once  decided  that, 
on  the  whole,  it  would  be  as  well  for  him  not  to  live  in 
France.  For,  just  as  modern  Germany  dates  from  the 
accession  of  Frederick  to  the  throne  of  Prussia,  so  modem 
France  dates  from  the  establishment  of  Voltaire  on  the  banks 
of  the  Lake  of  Geneva.  The  intersection  of  those  two  mo- 
mentous lives  forms  one  of  the  most  curious  and  one  of  the 
most  celebrated  incidents  in  history.  To  English  readers  it 
is  probably  best  known  through  the  few  brilliant  paragraphs 
devoted  to  it  by  Macaulay;  though  Carlyle's  masterly  and 
far  more  elaborate  narrative  is  familiar  to  every  lover  of 
The  History  of  Friedrich  II.  Since  Carlyle  wrote,  however, 
fifty  years  have  passed.  New  points  of  view  have  arisen, 
and  a  certain  amount  of  new  material — including  the  valua- 
ble edition  of  the  correspondence  between  Voltaire  and  Fred- 

1  October,  1915. 

i67j 


i68  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

erick  published  from  the  original  documents  in  the  Archives 
at  Berlin — ^has  become  available.  It  seems,  therefore,  in 
spite  of  the  familiarity  of  the  main  outlines  of  the  story, 
that  another  rapid  review  of  it  will  not  be  out  of  place. 

Voltaire  was  forty-two  years  of  age,  and  already  one  of 
the  most  famous  men  of  the  day,  when,  in  August  1736, 
he  received  a  letter  from  the  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia.  This 
letter  was  the  first  in  a  correspondence  which  was  to  last, 
with  a  few  remarkable  intervals,  for  a  space  of  over  forty 
years.  It  was  written  by  a  young  man  of  twenty-four,  of 
whose  personal  qualities  very  little  was  known,  and  whose 
importance  seemed  to  lie  simply  in  the  fact  that  he  was  heir- 
apparent  to  one  of  the  secondary  European  monarchies. 
Voltaire,  however,  was  not  the  man  to  turn  up  his  nose 
at  royalty,  in  whatever  form  it  might  present  itself;  and  it 
was  moreover  clear  that  the  young  Prince  had  picked  up 
at  least  a  smattering  of  French  culture,  that  he  was  genuinely 
anxious  to  become  acquainted  with  the  tendencies  of  modern 
thought,  and,  above  all,  that  his  admiration  for  the  author 
of  the  Henriade  and  Zaire  was  unbounded. 

La  douceur  et  le  support  [wrote  Frederick]  que  vous  marquez 
pour  tous  ceux  qui  se  vouent  aux  arts  et  aux  sciences,  me  font 
esperer  que  vous  ne  m'exclurez  pas  du  nombre  de  ceux  que  vous 
trouvez  dignes  de  vos  instructions.  Je  nomme  ainsi  votre  com- 
merce de  lettres,  qui  ne  peut  etre  que  profitable  a  tout  etre 
pensant.  J'ose  meme  avancer,  sans  deroger,  au  merite  d'autrui, 
que  dans  I'univers  entier  il  n'y  aurait  pas  d'exception  k  faire  de 
ceux  dont  vous  ne  pourriez  etre  le  maitre. 

The  great  man  was  accordingly  delighted;  he  replied  with 
all  that  graceful  affability  of  which  he  was  a  master,  de- 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      169 

dared  that  his  correspondent  was  "  un  prince  philosophe  qui 
rendra  les  hommes  heureux,"  and  showed  that  he  meant  busi- 
ness by  plunging  at  once  into  a  discussion  of  the  metaphysi- 
cal doctrines  of  "  le  sieur  Wolf,"  whom  Frederick  had  com- 
mended as  "  le  plus  celebre  philosophe  de  nos  jours."  For 
the  next  four  years  the  correspondence  continued  on  the  lines 
thus  laid  down.  It  was  a  correspondence  between  a  master 
and  a  pupil:  Frederick,  his  passions  divided  between  German 
philosophy  and  French  poetry,  poured  out  with  equal  copi- 
ousness disquisitions  upon  Free  Will  and  la  raison  suffisante, 
odes  sur  la  Flatterie,  and  epistles  sur  I'Humanite,  while  Vol- 
taire kept  the  ball  rolling  with  no  less  enormous  philosophical 
replies,  together  with  minute  criticisms  of  His  Royal  High- 
ness's  mistakes  in  French  metre  and  French  orthography. 
Thus,  though  the  interest  of  these  early  letters  must  have 
been  intense  to  the  young  Prince,  they  have  far  too  little 
personal  flavour  to  be  anything  but  extremely  tedious  to  the 
reader  of  to-day.  Only  very  occasionally  is  it  possible  to, 
detect,  amid  the  long  and  careful  periods,  some  faint  signs 
of  feeling  or  of  character.  Voltaire's  empressement  seems  to 
take  on,  once  or  twice,  the  colours  of  something  like  a  real 
enthusiasm;  and  one  notices  that,  after  two  years,  Freder- 
ick's letters  begin  no  longer  with  "  Monsieur  "  but  with 
"  Mon  cher  ami,'*  which  glides  at  last  insensibly  into  "  Mon 
cher  Voltaire  ";  though  the  careful  poet  continues  with  his 
"  Monseigneur  "  throughout.  Then,  on  one  occasion,  Fred- 
erick makes  a  little  avowal,  which  reads  oddly  in  the  light 
of  future  events. 

Souffrez  [he  says]  que  je  vous  fasse  mon  caractere,  afin  que 
vous  ne  vous  y  mepreniez  plus.  .  .  .  J'ai  peu  de  merite  et  peu  de 


I70  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

savoir;  mais  j'ai  beaucoup  de  bonne  volonte,  et  un  fonds  in- 
epuisable  d'estime  et  d'amitie  pour  les  personnes  d'une  vertu 
distinguee  et  avec  cela  je  suis  capable  de  toute  la  Constance  que 
la  vraie  amitie  exige.  J'ai  assez  de  jugement  pour  vous  rendre 
toute  la  justice  que  vous  meritez;  mais  je  n'en  ai  pas  assez  pour 
m'empeclier  de  faire  de  mauvais  vers. 


But  this  is  exceptional;  as  a  rule,  elaborate  compliments  take 
the  place  of  personal  confessions;  and,  while  Voltaire  is  never 
tired  of  comparing  Frederick  to  Apollo,  Alcibiades,  and  the 
youthful  Marcus  Aurelius,  of  proclaiming  the  re-birth  of 
"  les  talents  de  Virgile  et  les  vertus  d'Auguste,"  or  of  de- 
claring that  "  Socrate  ne  m'est  rien,  c'est  Frederic  que 
j'aime,"  the  Crown  Prince  is  on  his  side  ready  with  an  equal 
flow  of  protestations,  which  sometimes  rise  to  singular 
heights.  "  Ne  croyez  pas,"  he  says,  "  que  je  pousse  mon 
scepticisme  a  outrance  .  .  .  Je  crois,  par  exemple,  qu'il 
n'y  a  qil'un  Dieu  et  qu'un  Voltaire  dans  le  monde;  je  crois 
encore  que  ce  Dieu  avait  besoin  dans  ce  siecle  d'un  Voltaire 
pour  le  rendre  aimable."  Decidedly  the  Prince's  compli- 
ments were  too  emphatic,  and  the  poet's  too  ingenious;  as 
Voltaire  himself  said  afterwards,  "  les  epithetes  ne  nous 
coutaient  rien  ";  yet  neither  was  without  a  little  residue  of 
sincerity.  Frederick's  admiration  bordered  upon  the  senti- 
mental; and  Voltaire  had  begun  to  allow  himself  to  hope  that 
some  day,  in  a  provincial  German  court,  there  might  be 
found  a  crowned  head  devoting  his  life  to  philosophy,  good 
sense,  and  the  love  of  letters.  Both  were  to  receive  a  curious 
awakening. 

In  1740  Frederick  became  King  of  Prussia,  and  a  new 
epoch  in  the  relations  between  the  two  men  began.    The 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      171 

next  ten  years  were,  on  both  sides,  years  of  growing  dis- 
illusionment. Voltaire  very  soon  discovered  that  his  phrase 
about  "  un  prince  philosophe  qui  rendra  les  hommes 
heureux  "  was  indeed  a  phrase  and  nothing  more.  His  prince 
philosophe  started  out  on  a  career  of  conquest,  plunged  all 
Europe  into  war,  and  turned  Prussia  into  a  great  military 
power.  Frederick,  it  appeared,  was  at  once  a  far  more  im- 
portant and  a  far  more  dangerous  phenomenon  than  Voltaire 
had.  suspected.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  matured  mind 
of  the  King  was  not  slow  to  perceive  that  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  Prince  needed  a  good  deal  of  qualification.  This  change 
of  view  was,  indeed,  remarkably  rapid.  Nothing  is  more 
striking  than  the  alteration  of  the  tone  in  Frederick's  cor- 
respondence during  the  few  months  which  followed  his  ac- 
cession: the  voice  of  the  raw  and  inexperienced  youth  is 
heard  no  more,  and  its  place  is  taken — at  once  and  for  ever 
— ^by  the  self-contained  caustic  utterance  of  an  embittered 
man  of  the  world.  In  this  transformation  it  was  only  natural 
that  the  wondrous  figure  of  Voltaire  should  lose  some  of  its 
glitter — especially  since  Frederick  now  began  to  have  the 
opportunity  of  inspecting  that  figure  in  the  flesh  with  his 
own  sharp  eyes.  The  friends  met  three  or  four  times,  and 
it  is  noticeable  that  after  each  meeting  there  is  a  distinct 
coolness  on  the  part  of  Frederick.  He  writes  with  a  sudden 
brusqueness  to  accuse  Voltaire  of  showing  about  his  manu- 
scripts, which,  he  says,  had  only  been  sent  him  on  the  con- 
dition of  un  secret  inviolable.  He  writes  to  Jordan  com- 
plaining of  Voltaire's  avarice  in  very  stringent  terms.  "  Ton 
avare  boira  la  lie  de  son  insatiable  desir  de  s'enrichir  .  .  . 
Son  apparition  de  six  jours  me  coutera  par  journee  cinq  cent 


172  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

cinquante  ecus.  C'est  bien  payer  un  fou;  jamais  bouffon  de 
grand  seigneur  n'eut  de  pareils  gages."  He  declares  that 
"  la  cervelle  du  poete  est  aussi  legere  que  le  style  de  ses 
ouvrages,"  and  remarks  sarcastically  that  he  is  indeed  a  man 
extraordinaire  en  tout. 

Yet,  while  his  opinion  of  Voltaire's  character  was  rapidly 
growing  more  and  more  severe,  his  admiration  of  his  talents 
remained  undiminished.  For,  though  he  had  dropped  meta- 
physics when  he  came  to  the  throne,  Frederick  could  never 
drop  his  passion  for  French  poetry;  he  recognised  in  Voltaire 
the  unapproachable  master  of  that  absorbing  art;  and  for 
years  he  had  made  up  his  mind  that,  some  day  or  other,  he 
would  posseder — for  so  he  put  it — the  author  of  the  Henri- 
ade,  would  keep  him  at  Berlin  as  the  brightest  ornament  of 
his  court,  and,  above  all,  would  have  him  always  ready  at 
hand  to  put  the  final  polish  on  his  own  verses.  In  the 
autumn  of  1 743  it  seemed  for  a  moment  that  his  wish  would 
be  gratified.  Voltaire  spent  a  visit  of  several  weeks  in  Ber- 
lin; he  was  dazzled  by  the  graciousness  of  his  reception  and 
the  splendour  of  his  surroundings;  and  he  began  to  listen 
to  the  honeyed  overtures  of  the  Prussian  Majesty.  The  great 
obstacle  to  Frederick's  desire  was  Voltaire's  relationship  with 
Madame  du  Chatelet.  He  had  lived  with  her  for  more  than 
ten  years;  he  was  attached  to  her  by  all  the  ties  of  friend- 
ship and  gratitude;  he  had  constantly  declared  that  he  would 
never  leave  her — no,  not  for  all  the  seductions  of  princes. 
She  would,  it  is  true,  have  been  willing  to  accompany  Vol- 
taire to  Berlin;  but  such  a  solution  would  by  no  means  have 
suited  Frederick.  He  was  not  fond  of  ladies — even  of  ladies 
like  Madame  du  Chatelet — ^learned  enough  to  translate  New- 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      173 

ton  and  to  discuss  by  the  hour  the  niceties  of  the  Leibnitzian 
philosophy;  and  he  had  determined  to  possMer  Voltaire 
either  completely  or  not  at  all.  Voltaire,  in  spite  of  repeated 
temptations,  had  remained  faithful;  but  now,  for  the  first 
time,  poor  Madame  du  Chatelet  began  to  be  seriously 
alarmed.  His  letters  from  Berlin  grew  fewer  and  fewer,  and 
more  and  more  ambiguous;  she  knew  nothing  of  his  plans; 
"  il  est  ivre  absolument "  she  burst  out  in  her  distress  to 
d.'Argental,  one  of  his  oldest  friends.  By  every  post  she 
dreaded  to  learn  at  last  that  he  had  deserted  her  for  ever. 
But  suddenly  Voltaire  returned.  The  spell  of  Berlin  had 
been  broken,  and  he  was  at  her  feet  once  more. 

What  had  happened  was  highly  characteristic  both  of  the 
Poet  and  of  the  King.  Each  had  tried  to  play  a  trick  on 
the  other,  and  each  had  found  the  other  out.  The  French 
Government  had  been  anxious  to  obtain  an  insight  into  the 
diplomatic  intentions  of  Frederick,  in  an  unofficial  way; 
Voltaire  had  offered  his  services,  and  it  had  been  agreed 
that  he  should  write  to  Frederick  declaring  that  he  was 
obliged  to  leave  France  for  a  time  owing  to  the  hostility 
of  a  member  of  the  Government,  the  Bishop  of  Mirepoix,  and 
asking  for  Frederick's  hospitality.  Frederick  had  not  been 
taken  in:  though  he  had  not  disentangled  the  whole  plot, 
he  had  perceived  clearly  enough  that  Voltaire's  visit  was  in 
reality  that  of  an  agent  of  the  French  Government;  he  also 
thought  he  saw  an  opportunity  of  securing  the  desire  of 
his  heart.  Voltaire,  to  give  verisimilitude  to  his  story,  had, 
in  his  letter  to  Frederick,  loaded  the  Bishop  of  Mirepoix 
with  ridicule  and  abuse;  and  Frederick  now  secretly  sent 
this  letter  to  Mirepoix  himself.    His  calculation  was  that 


174  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Mirepoix  would  be  so  outraged  that  he  would  make  it  im- 
possible for  Voltaire  ever  to  return  to  France;  and  in  that 
case — well,  Voltaire  would  have  no  other  course  open  to 
him  but  to  stay  where  he  was,  in  Berlin,  and  Madame  du 
Chatelet  would  have  to  make  the  best  of  it.  Of  course, 
Frederick's  plan  failed,  and  Voltaire  was  duly  informed  by 
Mirepoix  of  what  had  happened.  He  was  naturally  very 
angry.  He  had  been  almost  induced  to  stay  in  Berlin  of  his 
own  accord,  and  now  he  found  that  his  host  had  been  at- 
tempting, by  means  of  treachery  and  intrigue,  to  force  him 
to  stay  there  whether  he  liked  it  or  not.  It  was  a  long  time 
before  he  forgave  Frederick.  But  the  King  was  most  anxious 
to  patch  up  the  quarrel;  he  still  could  not  abandon  the  hope 
of  ultimately  securing  Voltaire;  and  besides,  he  was  now 
possessed  by  another  and  a  more  immediate  desire — to  be 
allowed  a  glimpse  of  that  famous  and  scandalous  work  which 
Voltaire  kept  locked  in  the  innermost  drawer  of  his  cabinet 
and  revealed  to  none  but  the  most  favoured  of  his  intimates 
— La  Pucelle. 

Accordingly  the  royal  letters  became  more  frequent  and 
more  flattering  than  ever;  the  royal  hand  cajoled  and  im- 
plored. "  Ne  me  faites  point  injustice  sur  mon  caractere; 
d'ailleurs  il  vous  est  permis  de  badiner  sur  mon  sujet  comme 
il  vous  plaira."  "La  Pucelle!  La  Pucelle f  La  Pucelle! 
et  encore  La  Pucelle! "  he  exclaims.  "  Pour  I'amour  de 
Dieu,  ou  plus  encore  pour  I'amour  de  vous-meme,  envoyez- 
la-moi."  And  at  last  Voltaire  was  softened.  He  sent  off 
a  few  fragments  of  his  Pucelle — just  enough  to  whet  Fred- 
erick's appetite — and  he  declared  himself  reconciled.  "  Je 
vous  ai  aime  tendrement,"  he  wrote  in  March  1749;  "  j'ai 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      175 

ete  fache  contre  vous,  je  vous  ai  pardonne,  et  actuellement 
je  vous  aime  a  la  folic."  Within  a  year  of  this  date  his 
situation  had  undergone  a  complete  change.  Madame  du 
Chatelet  was  dead;  and  his  position  at  Versailles,  in  spite 
of  the  friendship  of  Madame  de  Pompadour,  had  become 
almost  as  impossible  as  he  had  pretended  it  to  have  been 
in  1743.  Frederick  eagerly  repeated  his  invitation;  and 
this  time  Voltaire  did  not  refuse.  He  was  careful  to  make 
a  very  good  bargain;  obliged  Frederick  to  pay  for  his  jour- 
ney; and  arrived  at  Berlin  in  July  1750.  He  was  given 
rooms  in  the  royal  palaces  both  at  Berlin  and  Potsdam;  he 
was  made  a  Court  Chamberlain,  and  received  the  Order  of 
Merit,  together  with  a  pension  of  £800  a  year.  These  ar- 
rangements caused  considerable  amusement  in  Paris;  and 
for  some  days  hawkers,  carrying  prints  of  Voltaire  dressed 
in  furs,  and  crying  "  Voltaire  le  prussien!  Six  sols  le  fameux 
prussien!  "  were  to  be  seen  walking  up  and  down  the 
Quays. 

The  curious  drama  that  followed,  with  its  farcical 
Ttepmareia  and  its  tragi-comic  denouement,  can  hardly  be 
understood  without  a  brief  consideration  of  the  feelings  and 
intentions  of  the  two  chief  actors  in  it.  The  position  of 
Frederick  is  comparatively  plain.  He  had  now  completely 
thrown  aside  the  last  lingering  remnants  of  any  esteem  which 
he  may  once  have  entertained  for  the  character  of  Voltaire. 
He  frankly  thought  him  a  scoundrel.  In  September  1749, 
less  than  a  year  before  Voltaire's  arrival,  and  at  the  very 
period  of  Frederick's  most  urgent  invitations,  we  fmd  him 
using  the  following  language  in  a  letter  to  Algarotti:  "  Vol- 
taire vient  de  faire  un  tour  qui  est  indigne."    (He  had  been 


176  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

showing  to  all  his  friends  a  garbled  copy  of  one  of  Fred- 
erick's letters.) 

II  meriterait  d'etre  fleurdelise  au  Parnasse.  C'est  bien  dom- 
mage  qu'une  ame  aussi  lache  soit  unie  a  un  aussi  beau  genie. 
II  a  les  gentillesses  et  les  malices  d'un  singe,  Je  vous  conterai 
ce  que  c'est,  lorsque  je  vous  reverrai;  cependant  je  ne  ferai 
semblant  de  rien,  car  j'en  ai  besoin  pour  I'etude  de  I'elocution 
fran^aise.  On  pent  apprendre  de  bonnes  choses  d'un  scelerat. 
Je  veux  savoir  son  frangais;  que  m'importe  sa  morale?  Cet 
homme  a  trouve  le  moyen  de  reunir  tous  les  contraires.  On 
admire  son  esprit,  en  meme  temps  qu'on  meprise  son  caractere. 

There  is  no  ambiguity  about  this.  Voltaire  was  a  scoun- 
drel; but  he  was  a  scoundrel  of  genius.  He  would  make  the 
best  possible  teacher  of  I'elocution  jranqaise;  therefore  it 
was  necessary  that  he  should  come  and  live  in  Berlin.  But 
as  for  anything  more — as  for  any  real  interchange  of  sym- 
pathies, any  genuine  feeling  of  friendliness,  of  respect,  or 
even  of  regard — all  that  was  utterly  out  of  the  question. 
The  avowal  is  cynical,  no  doubt;  but  it  is  at  any  rate  straight- 
forward, and  above  all  it  is  peculiarly  devoid  of  any  trace 
of  self-deception.  In  the  face  of  these  trenchant  sentences, 
the  view  of  Frederick's  attitude  which  is  suggested  so  assidu- 
ously by  Carlyle — that  he  was  the  victim  of  an  elevated 
misapprehension,  that  he  was  always  hoping  for  the  best, 
and  that,  when  the  explosion  came  he  was  very  much  sur- 
prised and  profoundly  disappointed — becomes  obviously 
untenable.  If  any  man  ever  acted  with  his  eyes  wide 
open,  it  was  Frederick  when  he  invited  Voltaire  to  Ber- 
lin. 
Yet,  though  that  much  is  clear,  the  letter  to  Algarotti 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      177 

betrays,  in  more  than  one  direction,  a  very  singular  state 
of  mind.  A  warm  devotion  to  I'elocution  frangaise  is  easy 
enough  to  understand;  but  Frederick's  devotion  was  much 
more  than  warm;  it  was  so  absorbing  and  so  intense  that 
it  left  him  no  rest  until,  by  hook  or  by  crook,  by  supplication, 
or  by  trickery,  or  by  paying  down  hard  cash,  he  had  obtained 
the  close  and  constant  proximity  of — ^what? — of  a  man  whom 
he  himself  described  as  a  "  singe  "  and  a  "  scelerat,"  a  man 
of  base  soul  and  despicable  character.  And  Frederick  ap- 
pears to  see  nothing  surprising  in  this.  He  takes  it  quite 
as  a  matter  of  course  that  he  should  be,  not  merely  willing, 
but  delighted  to  run  all  the  risks  involved  by  Voltaire's  un- 
doubted roguery,  so  long  as  he  can  be  sure  of  benefiting 
from  Voltaire's  no  less  undoubted  mastery  of  French  versi- 
fication. This  is  certainly  strange;  but  the  explanation  of 
it  lies  in  the  extraordinary  vogue — a  vogue,  indeed,  so  ex- 
traordinary that  it  is  very  difficult  for  the  modern  reader 
to  realise  it — enjoyed  throughout  Europe  by  French  culture 
and  literature  during  the  middle  years  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Frederick  was  merely  an  extreme  instance  of  a  uni- 
versal fact.  Like  all  Germans  of  any  education,  he  habitu- 
ally wrote  and  spoke  in  French;  like  every  lady  and  gentle- 
man from  Naples  to  Edinburgh,  his  life  was  regulated  by 
the  social  conventions  of  France;  like  every  amateur  of  let- 
ters from  Madrid  to  St.  Petersburg,  his  whole  conception 
of  literary  taste,  his  whole  standard  of  literary  values,  was 
French.  To  him,  as  to  the  vast  majority  of  his  contempo- 
raries, the  very  essence  of  civilisation  was  concentrated  in 
French  literature,  and  especially  in  French  poetry;  and 
French  poetry  meant  to  him,  as  to  his  contemporaries,  that 


178  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

particular  kind  of  French  poetry  which  had  come  into  fashion 
at  the  court  of  Louis  XIV.  For  this  curious  creed  was  as 
narrow  as  it  was  all-pervading.  The  Grand  Steele  was  the 
Church  Infallible;  and  it  was  heresy  to  doubt  the  Gospel 
of  Boileau. 

Frederick's  library,  still  preserved  at  Potsdam,  shows  us 
what  literature  meant  in  those  days  to  a  cultivated  man:  it 
is  composed  entirely  of  the  French  Classics,  of  the  works 
of  Voltaire,  and  of  the  masterpieces  of  antiquity  translated 
into  eighteenth-century  French.  But  Frederick  was  not  con- 
tent with  mere  appreciation;  he  too  would  create;  he  would 
write  Alexandrines  on  the  model  of  Racine,  and  madrigals 
after  the  manner  of  Chaulieu;  he  would  press  in  person  into 
the  sacred  sanctuary,  and  burn  incense  with  his  own  hands 
upon  the  inmost  shrine.  It  was  true  that  he  was  a  for- 
eigner; it  was  true  that  his  knowledge  of  the  French  lan- 
guage was  incomplete  and  incorrect;  but  his  sense  of  his 
own  ability  urged  him  forward,  and  his  indefatigable  per- 
tinacity kept  him  at  his  strange  task  throughout  the  whole 
of  his  life.  He  filled  volumes,  and  the  contents  of  those  vol- 
umes afford  probably  the  most  complete  illustration  in  lit- 
erature of  the  very  trite  proverb — Poeta  nascitur,  non  fit. 
The  spectacle  of  that  heavy  German  Muse,  with  her  feet 
crammed  into  pointed  slippers,  executing,  with  incredible 
conscientiousness,  now  the  stately  measure  of  a  Versailles 
minuet,  and  now  the  spritely  steps  of  a  Parisian  jig,  would 
be  either  ludicrous  or  pathetic — one  hardly  knows  which — 
were  it  not  so  certainly  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  but 
simply  dreary  with  an  unutterable  dreariness,  from  which 
the  eyes  of  men  avert  themselves  in  shuddering  dismay. 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      179 

Frederick  himself  felt  that  there  was  something  wrong — 
something,  but  not  really  very  much.  All  that  was  wanted 
was  a  little  expert  advice;  and  obviously  Voltaire  was  the 
man  to  supply  it — ^Voltaire,  the  one  true  heir  of  the  Great 
Age,  the  dramatist  who  had  revived  the  glories  of  Racine 
(did  not  Frederick's  tears  flow  almost  as  copiously  over 
Mahomet  as  over  Britannicus?) ,  the  epic  poet  who  had 
eclipsed  Homer  and  Virgil  (had  not  Frederick  every  right 
to  judge,  since  he  had  read  the  Iliad  in  French  prose 
and  the  Mneid  in  French  verse?),  the  lyric  master  whose 
odes  and  whose  epistles  occasionally  even  surpassed  (Fred- 
erick confessed  it  with  amazement)  those  of  the  Marquis 
de  la  Fare.  Voltaire,  there  could  be  no  doubt,  would  do 
just  what  was  needed;  he  would  know  how  to  squeeze  in 
a  little  further  the  waist  of  the  German  Calliope,  to  apply 
with  his  deft  fingers  precisely  the  right  dab  of  rouge  to  her 
cheeks,  to  instil  into  her  movements  the  last  nuances  of 
correct  deportment.  And,  if  he  did  that,  of  what  conse- 
quence were  the  blemishes  of  his  personal  character?  "  On 
pent  apprendre  de  bonnes  choses  d'un  scelerat." 

And,  besides,  though  Voltaire  might  be  a  rogue,  Fred- 
erick felt  quite  convinced  that  he  could  keep  him  in  order.  A 
crack  or  two  of  the  master's  whip — a  coldness  in  the  royal 
demeanour,  a  hint  at  a  stoppage  of  the  pension — and  the 
monkey  would  put  an  end  to  his  tricks  soon  enough.  It 
never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  Frederick  that  the  pos- 
session of  genius  might  imply  a  quality  of  spirit  which  was 
not  that  of  an  ordinary  man.  This  was  his  great,  his  funda- 
mental error.  It  was  the  ingenuous  error  of  a  cynic.  He 
knew  that  he  was  under  no  delusion  as  to  Voltaire's  faults, 


i8o  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

and  so  he  supposed  that  he  could  be  under  no  delusion  as 
to  his  merits.  He  innocently  imagined  that  the  capacity 
for  great  writing  was  something  that  could  be  as  easily 
separated  from  the  owner  of  it  as  a  hat  or  a  glove.  "  C'est 
bien  dommage  qu'une  ame  aussi  lache  soit  unie  a  un  aussi 
beau  genie."  C'est  bien  dommage! — as  if  there  was  nothing 
more  extraordinary  in  such  a  combination  than  that  of  a 
pretty  woman  and  an  ugly  dress.  And  so  Frederick  held 
his  whip  a  little  tighter,  and  reminded  himself  once  more 
that,  in  spite  of  that  beau  genie,  it  was  a  monkey  that  he 
had  to  deal  with.  But  he  was  wrong:  it  was  not  a  monkey; 
it  was  a  devil,  which  is  a  very  different  thing. 

A  devil — or  perhaps  an  angel?  One  cannot  be  quite  sure. 
For,  amid  the  complexities  of  that  extraordinary  spirit,  where 
good  and  evil  were  so  mysteriously  interwoven,  where  the 
elements  of  darkness  and  the  elements  of  light  lay  crowded 
together  in  such  ever-deepening  ambiguity,  fold  within  fold, 
the  clearer  the  vision  the  greater  the  bewilderment,  the  more 
impartial  the  judgment  the  profounder  the  doubt.  But  one 
thing  at  least  is  certain ;  that  spirit,  whether  it  was  admirable 
or  whether  it  was  odious,  was  moved  by  a  terrific  force. 
Frederick  had  failed  to  realise  this;  and  indeed,  though 
Voltaire  was  fifty-six  when  he  went  to  Berlin,  and  though 
his  whole  life  had  been  spent  in  a  blaze  of  publicity,  there 
was  still  not  one  of  his  contemporaries  who  understood  the 
true  nature  of  his  genius;  it  was  perhaps  hidden  even  from 
himself.  He  had  reached  the  threshold  of  old  age,  and  his 
life's  work  was  still  before  him;  it  was  not  as  a  writer  of 
tragedies  and  epics  that  he  was  to  take  his  place  in  the 
•^orld.    Was  he,  in  the  depths  of  his  consciousness,  aware 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      i8i 

that  this  was  so?  Did  some  obscure  instinct  urge  him  for- 
ward, at  this  late  hour,  to  break  with  the  ties  of  a  lifetime, 
and  rush  forth  into  the  unknown? 

What  his  precise  motives  were  in  embarking  upon  the  Ber- 
lin adventure  it  is  very  difficult  to  say.  It  is  true  that  he 
was  disgusted  with  Paris — ^he  was  ill-received  at  Court,  and 
he  was  pestered  by  endless  literary  quarrels  and  jealousies; 
it  would  be  very  pleasant  to  show  his  countrymen  that  he 
had  other  strings  to  his  bow^  that,  if  they  did  not  appreciate 
him,  Frederick  the  Great  did.  It  is  true,  too,  that  he 
admired  Frederick's  intellect,  and  that  he  was  flattered  by 
his  favour.  "  II  avait  de  I'esprit,"  he  said  afterwards,  "  des 
graces,  et,  de  plus,  il  etait  roi;  ce  qui  fait  toujours  une 
grande  seduction,  attendu  la  faiblesse  humaine."  His  vanity 
could  not  resist  the  prestige  of  a  royal  intimacy;  and  no 
doubt  he  relished  to  the  full  even  the  increased  consequence 
which  came  to  him  with  his  chamberlain's  key  and  his  order 
— to  say  nothing  of  the  addition  of  f  800  to  his  income. 
Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was  very  well  aware  that  he 
was  exchanging  freedom  for  servitude,  and  that  he  was  en- 
tering into  a  bargain  with  a  man  who  would  make  quite 
sure  that  he  was  getting  his  money's  worth;  and  he  knew 
in  his  heart  that  he  had  something  better  to  do  than  to  play, 
however  successfully,  the  part  of  a  courtier.  Nor  was  he 
personally  attached  to  Frederick;  he  was  personally  attached 
to  no  one  on  earth.  Certainly  he  had  never  been  a  man 
of  feeling,  and  now  that  he  was  old  and  hardened  by  the 
uses  of  the  world  he  had  grown  to  be  completely  what  in 
essence  he  always  was — a  fighter,  without  tenderness,  with- 
out scruples,  and  without  remorse.    No,  he  went  to  Berlin 


1 82  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

for  his  own  purposes — ^however  dubious  those  purposes  may 
have  been. 

And  it  is  curious  to  observe  that  in  his  correspondence 
with  his  niece,  Madame  Denis,  whom  he  had  left  behind 
him  at  the  head  of  his  Paris  establishment  and  in  whom 
he  confided — in  so  far  as  he  can  be  said  to  have  confided 
in  any  one — he  repeatedly  states  that  there  is  nothing  per- 
manent about  his  visit  to  Berlin.  At  first  he  declares  that 
he  is  only  making  a  stay  of  a  few  weeks  with  Frederick, 
that  he  is  going  on  to  Italy  to  visit  "  sa  Saintete  "  and  to 
inspect  "  la  ville  souterraine,"  that  he  will  be  back  in  Paris 
in  the  autumn.  The  autumn  comes,  and  the  roads  are  too 
muddy  to  travel  by;  he  must  wait  till  the  winter,  when  they 
will  be  frozen  hard.  Winter  comes,  and  it  is  too  cold  to 
move;  but  he  will  certainly  return  in  the  spring.  Spring 
comes,  and  he  is  on  the  point  of  finishing  his  Siecle  de 
Louis  XIV.;  he  really  must  wait  just  a  few  weeks  more. 
The  book  is  published;  but  then  how  can  he  appear  in  Paris 
until  he  is  quite  sure  of  its  success?  And  so  he  lingers 
on,  delaying  and  prevaricating,  until  a  whole  year  has  passed, 
and  still  he  lingers  on,  still  he  is  on  the  point  of  going,  and 
still  he  does  not  go.  Meanwhile,  to  all  appearances,  he  was 
definitely  fixed,  a  salaried  official,  at  Frederick's  court;  and 
he  was  writing  to  all  his  other  friends,  to  assure  them  that 
he  had  never  been  so  happy,  that  he  could  see  no  reason 
why  he  should  ever  come  away.  What  were  his  true  in- 
tentions? Could  he  himself  have  said?  Had  he  perhaps,  in 
some  secret  corner  of  his  brain,  into  which  even  he  hardly 
dared  to  look,  a  premonition  of  the  future?  At  times,  in 
this  Berlin  adventure,  he  seems  to  resemble  some  great 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      183 

buzzing  fly,  shooting  suddenly  into  a  room  through  an 
open  window  and  dashing  frantically  from  side  to  side;  when 
all  at  once,  as  suddenly,  he  swoops  away  and  out  through 
another  window  which  opens  in  quite  a  different  direction, 
towards  wide  and  flowery  fields;  so  that  perhaps  the  reck- 
less creature  knew  where  he  was  going  after  all. 

In  any  case,  it  is  evident  to  the  impartial  observer  that 
Voltaire's  visit  could  only  have  ended  as  it  did — in  an 
explosion.  The  elements  of  the  situation  were  too  combusti- 
ble for  any  other  conclusion.  When  two  confirmed  egotists 
decide,  for  purely  selfish  reasons,  to  set  up  house  together, 
every  one  knows  what  will  happen.  For  some  time  their 
sense  of  mutual  advantage  may  induce  them  to  tolerate 
each  other,  but  sooner  or  later  human  nature  will  assert 
itself,  and  the  menage  will  break  up.  And,  with  Voltaire 
and  Frederick,  the  difficulties  inherent  in  all  such  cases  were 
intensified  by  the  fact  that  the  relationship  between  them 
was,  in  effect,  that  of  servant  and  master;  that  Voltaire, 
under  a  very  thin  disguise,  was  a  paid  menial,  while  Fred- 
erick, condescend  as  he  might,  was  an  autocrat  whose  will 
was  law.  Thus  the  two  famous  and  perhaps  mythical  sen- 
tences, invariably  repeated  by  historians  of  the  incident, 
about  orange-skins  and  dirty  linen,  do  in  fact  sum  up  the 
gist  of  the  matter.  "  When  one  has  sucked  the  orange,  one 
throws  away  the  skin,"  somebody  told  Voltaire  that  the  King 
had  said,  on  being  asked  how  much  longer  he  would  put 
up  with  the  poet's  vagaries.  And  Frederick,  on  his  side, 
was  informed  that  Voltaire,  when  a  batch  of  the  royal 
verses  were  brought  to  him  for  correction,  had  burst  out 
with  "  Does  the  man  expect  me  to  go  on  washing  his  dirty 


i84  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

linen  for  ever?  "  Each  knew  well  enough  the  weak  spot 
in  his  position,  and  each  was  acutely  and  uncomfortably 
conscious  that  the  other  knew  it  too.  Thus,  but  a  very 
few  weeks  after  Voltaire's  arrival,  little  clouds  of  discord 
become  visible  on  the  horizon;  electrical  discharges  of  irri- 
tability begin  to  take  place,  growing  more  and  more  frequent 
and  violent  as  time  goes  on;  and  one  can  overhear  the  pot 
and  the  kettle,  in  strictest  privacy,  calling  each  other  black. 
"  The  monster,"  whispers  Voltaire  to  Madame  Denis,  "  he 
opens  all  our  letters  in  the  post " — Voltaire,  whose  light- 
handedness  with  other  people's  correspondence  was  only 
too  notorious.  "  The  monkey,"  mutters  Frederick,  "  he 
shows  my  private  letters  to  his  friends  " — Frederick,  who 
had  thought  nothing  of  betraying  Voltaire's  letters  to  the 
Bishop  of  Mirepoix.  "  How  happy  I  should  be  here,"  ex- 
claims the  callous  old  poet,  "  but  for  one  thing — ^his  Majesty 
is  utterly  heartless!  "  And  meanwhile  Frederick,  who  had 
never  let  a  farthing  escape  from  his  close  fist  without  some 
very  good  reason,  was  busy  concocting  an  epigram  upon 
the  avarice  of  Voltaire. 

It  was,  indeed,  Voltaire's  passion  for  money  which  brought 
on  the  first  really  serious  storm.  Three  months  after  his 
arrival  in  Berlin,  the  temptation  to  increase  his  already  con- 
siderable fortune  by  a  stroke  of  illegal  stock-jobbing  proved 
too  strong  for  him;  he  became  involved  in  a  series  of  shady 
financial  transactions  with  a  Jew;  he  quarrelled  with  the 
Jew;  there  was  an  acrimonious  lawsuit,  with  charges  and 
counter-charges  of  the  most  discreditable  kind;  and,  though 
the  Jew  lost  his  case  on  a  technical  point,  the  poet  certainly 
did  not  leave  the  court  without  a  stain  upon  his  character. 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      185 

Among  other  misdemeanours,  it  is  almost  certain — the  evi- 
dence is  not  quite  conclusive — that  he  committed  forgery 
in  order  to  support  a  false  oath.  Frederick  was  furious,  and 
for  a  moment  was  on  the  brink  of  dismissing  Voltaire  from 
Berlin.  He  would  have  been  wise  if  he  had  done  so.  But 
he  could  not  part  with  his  beau  genie  so  soon.  He  cracked 
his  whip,  and,  setting  the  monkey  to  stand  in  the  corner, 
contented  himself  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  and  the 
exclamation  "  C'est  I'affaire  d'un  fripon  qui  a  voulu  tromper 
un  filou."  A  few  weeks  later  the  royal  favour  shone  forth 
once  more,  and  Voltaire,  who  had  been  hiding  himself  in 
a  suburban  villa,  came  out  and  basked  again  in  those  re- 
fulgent beams. 

And  the  beams  were  decidedly  refulgent — so  much  so, 
in  fact,  that  they  almost  satisfied  even  the  vanity  of  Voltaire. 
Almost,  but  not  quite.  For,  though  his  glory  was  great, 
though  he  was  the  centre  of  all  men's  admiration,  courted 
by  nobles,  flattered  by  princesses — there  is  a  letter  from 
one  of  them,  a  sister  of  Frederick's,  still  extant,  wherein 
the  trembling  votaress  ventures  to  praise  the  great  man's 
works,  which,  she  says,  "  vous  rendent  si  celebre  et  im- 
mortel  " — though  he  had  ample  leisure  for  his  private  activ- 
ities, though  he  enjoyed  every  day  the  brilliant  conversation 
of  the  King,  though  he  could  often  forget  for  weeks  together 
that  he  was  the  paid  servant  of  a  jealous  despot — ^yet,  in 
spite  of  all,  there  was  a  crumpled  rose-leaf  amid  the  silken 
sheets,  and  he  lay  awake  o'  nights.  He  was  not  the  only 
Frenchman  at  Frederick's  court.  That  monarch  had  sur- 
rounded himself  with  a  small  group  of  persons — foreigners 
for  the  most  part — whose  business  it  was  to  instruct  him 


1 86  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

when  he  wished  to  improve  his  mind,  to  flatter  him  when 
he  was  out  of  temper,  and  to  entertain  him  when  he  was 
bored.  There  was  hardly  one  of  them  that  was  not  thor- 
oughly second-rate.  Algarotti  was  an  elegant  dabbler  in 
scientific  matters — he  had  written  a  book  to  explain  Newton 
to  the  ladies;  d'Argens  was  an  amiable  and  erudite  writer 
of  a  dull  free-thinking  turn;  Chasot  was  a  retired  military 
man  with  too  many  debts,  and  Darget  was  a  good-natured 
secretary  with  too  many  love  affairs;  La  Mettrie  was  a 
doctor  who  had  been  exiled  from  France  for  atheism  and 
bad  manners;  and  Pollnitz  was  a  decaying  baron  who,  under 
stress  of  circumstances,  had  unfortunately  been  obhged  to 
change  his  religion  six  times. 

These  were  the  boon  companions  among  whom  Frederick 
chose  to  spend  his  leisure  hours.  Whenever  he  had  noth- 
ing better  to  do,  he  would  exchange  rh5rmed  epigrams  with 
Algarotti,  or  discuss  the  Jewish  religion  with  d'Argens,  or 
write  long  improper  poems  about  Darget,  in  the  style  of 
La  Pucelle.  Or  else  he  would  summon  La  Mettrie,  who 
would  forthwith  prove  the  irrefutability  of  materialism  in 
a  series  of  wild  paradoxes,  shout  with  laughter,  suddenly 
shudder  and  cross  himself  on  upsetting  the  salt,  and  eventu- 
ally pursue  his  majesty  with  his  buffooneries  into  a  place 
where  even  royal  persons  are  wont  to  be  left  alone.  At 
other  times  Frederick  would  amuse  himself  by  first  cutting 
down  the  pension  of  Pollnitz,  who  was  at  the  moment  a 
Lutheran,  and  then  writing  long  and  serious  letters  to  him 
suggesting  that  if  he  would  only  become  a  Catholic  again 
he  might  be  made  a  Silesian  Abbot.  Strangely  enough, 
Frederick  was  not  popular,  and  one  or  other  of  the  inmates 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      187 

of  his  little  menagerie  was  constantly  escaping  and  running 
away.  Darget  and  Chasot  both  succeeded  in  getting  through 
the  wires;  they  obtained  leave  to  visit  Paris,  and  stayed 
there.  Poor  d'Argens  often  tried  to  follow  their  example; 
more  than  once  he  set  off  for  France,  secretly  vowing  never 
to  return;  but  he  had  no  money,  Frederick  was  blandishing, 
and  the  wretch  was  always  lured  back  to  captivity.  As 
for  La  Mettrie,  he  made  his  escape  in  a  different  manner 
— by  dying  after  supper  one  evening  of  a  surfeit  of  pheasant 
pie.  "Jesus!  Marie!  "  he  gasped,  as  he  felt  the  pains  of 
death  upon  him.  "Ah!  "  said  a  priest  who  had  been  sent 
for,  "  vous  voila  enfin  retourne  a  ces  noms  consolateurs." 
La  Mettrie,  with  an  oath,  expired;  and  Frederick,  on  hear- 
ing of  this  unorthodox  conclusion,  remarked,  "J'en  suis 
bien  aise,  pour  le  repos  de  son  ame." 

Among  this  circle  of  down-at-heel  eccentrics  there  was  a 
single  figure  whose  distinction  and  respectability  stood  out 
in  striking  contrast  from  the  rest — that  of  Maupertuis,  who 
had  been,  since  1745,  the  President  of  the  Academy  of  Sci- 
ences at  Berlin.  Maupertuis  has  had  an  unfortunate  fate: 
he  was  first  annihilated  by  the  ridicule  of  Voltaire,  and  then 
re-created  by  the  humour  of  Carlyle;  but  he  was  an  ambi- 
tious man,  very  anxious  to  be  famous,  and  his  desire  has 
been  gratified  in  over-flowing  measure.  During  his  life  he 
was  chiefly  known  for  his  voyage  to  Lapland,  and  his  ob- 
servations there,  by  which  he  was  able  to  substantiate  the 
Newtonian  doctrine  of  the  flatness  of  the  earth  at  the  poles. 
He  possessed  considerable  scientific  attainments,  he  was 
honest,  he  was  energetic;  he  appeared  to  be  just  the  man  to 
revive  the  waning  glories  of  Prussian  science;   and  when 


i88  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Frederick  succeeded  in  inducing  him  to  come  to  Berlin  as 
President  of  his  Academy  the  choice  seemed  amply  justified. 
Maupertuis  had,  moreover,  some  pretensions  to  wit;  and 
in  his  earlier  days  his  biting  and  elegant  sarcasms  had 
more  than  once  overwhelmed  his  scientific  adversaries.  Such 
accomplishments  suited  Frederick  admirably.  Maupertuis, 
he  declared,  was  an  homme  d' esprit,  and  the  happy  President 
became  a  constant  guest  at  the  royal  supper-parties.  It 
was  the  happy — the  too  happy — President  who  was  the  rose- 
leaf  in  the  bed  of  Voltaire.  The  two  men  had  known  each 
other  slightly  for  many  years,  and  had  always  expressed 
the  highest  admiration  for  each  other;  but  their  mutual  ami- 
ability was  now  to  be  put  to  a  severe  test.  The  sagacious 
Buffon  observed  the  danger  from  afar :  "  ces  deux  hommes," 
he  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  ne  sont  pas  faits  pour  demeurer 
ensemble  dans  la  meme  chambre."  And  indeed  to  the  vain 
and  sensitive  poet,  uncertain  of  Frederick's  cordiality,  sus- 
picious of  hidden  enemies,  intensely  jealous  of  possible  rivals, 
the  spectacle  of  Maupertuis  at  supper,  radiant,  at  his  ease, 
obviously  respected,  obviously  superior  to  the  shady  medi- 
ocrities who  sat  around — that  sight  was  gall  and  wormwood; 
and^  he  looked  closer,  with  a  new  malignity;  and  then  those 
piercing  eyes  began  to  make  discoveries,  and  that  relentless 
brain  began  to  do  its  work. 

Maupertuis  had  very  little  judgment;  so  far  from  attempt- 
ing to  conciliate  Voltaire,  he  was  rash  enough  to  provoke 
hostilities.  It  was  very  natural  that  he  should  have  lost 
his  temper.  He  had  been  for  five  years  the  dominating 
figure  in  the  royal  circle,  and  now  suddenly  he  was  deprived 
of  his  pre-eminence  and  thrown  completely  into  the  shade. 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      189 

Who  could  attend  to  Maupertuis  while  Voltaire  was  talk- 
ing?— Voltaire,  who  as  obviously  outshone  Maupertuis  as 
Maupertuis  outshone  La  Mettrie  and  Darget  and  the  rest. 
In  his  exasperation  the  President  went  to  the  length  of 
openly  giving  his  protection  to  a  disreputable  Uterary  man, 
La  Beaumelle,  who  was  a  declared  enemy  of  Voltaire.  This 
meant  war,  and  war  was  not  long  in  coming. 

Some  years  previously  Maupertuis  had,  as  he  believed, 
discovered  an  important  mathematical  law — the  "  principle 
of  least  action."  The  law  was,  in  fact,  important,  and  has 
had  a  fruitful  history  in  the  development  of  mechanical 
theory;  but,  as  Mr.  Jourdain  has  shown  in  a  recent  mono- 
graph, Maupertuis  enunciated  it  incorrectly,  without  realis- 
ing its  true  import,  and  a  far  more  accurate  and  scientific 
statement  of  it  was  given,  within  a  few  months,  by  Euler. 
Maupertuis,  however,  was  very  proud  of  his  discovery, 
which,  he  considered,  embodied  one  of  the  principal  reasons 
for  believing  in  the  existence  of  God;  and  he  was  therefore 
exceedingly  angry  when,  shortly  after  Voltaire's  arrival  in 
Berlin,  a  Swiss  mathematician,  Koenig,  published  a  polite 
memoir  attacking  both  its  accuracy  and  its  originality,  and 
quoted  in  support  of  his  contention  an  unpublished  letter 
by  Leibnitz,  in  which  the  law  was  more  exactly  expressed. 
Instead  of  arguing  upon  the  merits  of  the  case,  Maupertuis 
declared  that  the  letter  of  Leibnitz  was  a  forgery,  and  that 
therefore  Koenig's  remarks  deserved  no  further  considera- 
tion. When  Koenig  expostulated,  Maupertuis  decided  upon 
a  more  drastic  step.  He  summoned  a  meeting  of  the  Berlin 
Academy  of  Sciences,  of  which  Koenig  was  a  member,  laid 
the  case  before  it,  and  moved  that  it  should  solemnly  pro- 


I90  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

nounce  Koenig  a  forger,  and  the  letter  of  Leibnitz  suppo- 
sititious and  false.  The  members  of  the  Academy  were 
frightened;  their  pensions  depended  upon  the  President's 
good  will;  and  even  the  illustrious  Euler  was  not  ashamed 
to  take  part  in  this  absurd  and  disgraceful  condemnation. 

Voltaire  saw  at  once  that  his  opportunity  had  come. 
Maupertuis  had  put  himself  utterly  and  irretrievably  in 
the  wrong.  He  was  wrong  in  attributing  to  his  discovery 
a  value  which  it  did  not  possess;  he  was  wrong  in  denying 
the  authenticity  of  the  Leibnitz  letter;  above  all  he  was 
wrong  in  treating  a  purely  scientific  question  as  the  proper 
subject  for  the  disciplinary  jurisdiction  of  an  Academy.  If 
Voltaire  struck  now,  he  would  have  his  enemy  on  the  hip. 
There  was  only  one  consideration  to  give  him  pause,  and 
that  was  a  grave  one:  to  attack  Maupertuis  upon  this 
matter  was,  in  effect,  to  attack  the  King.  Not  only  was 
Frederick  certainly  privy  to  Maupertuis'  action,  but  he  was 
extremely  sensitive  of  the  reputation  of  his  Academy  and 
of  its  President,  and  he  would  certainly  consider  any  in- 
terference on  the  part  of  Voltaire,  who  himself  drew  his 
wages  from  the  royal  purse,  as  a  flagrant  act  of  disloyalty. 
But  Voltaire  decided  to  take  the  risk.  He  had  now  been 
more  than  two  years  in  Berlin,  and  the  atmosphere  of  a 
Court  was  beginning  to  weigh  upon  his  spirit;  he  was  rest- 
less, he  was  reckless,  he  was  spoiling  for  a  fight;  he  would 
take  on  Maupertuis  singly  or  Maupertuis  and  Frederick  com- 
bined— ^he  did  not  much  care  which,  and  in  any  case  he 
flattered  himself  that  he  would  settle  the  hash  of  the  Pres- 
ident. 

As  a  preparatory  measure,  he  withdrew  all  his  spare  cash 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      191 

from  Berlin,  and  invested  it  with  the  Duke  of  Wiirtemberg. 
"Je  mets  tout  doucement  ordre  a  mes  affaires,"  he  told 
Madame  Denis.  Then,  on  September  18,  1752,  there  ap- 
peared in  the  papers  a  short  article  entitled  "  Reponse 
d'un  Academicien  de  Berlin  a  un  Academicien  de  Paris." 
It  was  a  statement,  deadly  in  its  bald  simplicity,  its  studied 
coldness,  its  concentrated  force,  of  Koenig's  case  against 
Maupertuis.  The  President  must  have  turned  pale  as  he 
read  it;  but  the  King  turned  crimson.  The  terrible  indict- 
ment could,  of  course,  only  have  been  written  by  one  man, 
and  that  man  was  receiving  a  royal  pension  of  £800  a  year, 
and  carrying  about  a  Chamberlain's  gold  key  in  his  pocket. 
Frederick  flew  to  his  writing-table,  and  composed  an  indig- 
nant pamphlet,  which  he  caused  to  be  published  with  the 
Prussian  arms  on  the  title-page.  It  was  a  feeble  work,  full 
of  exaggerated  praises  of  Maupertuis,  and  of  clumsy  invec- 
tives against  Voltaire:  the  President's  reputation  was  gravely 
compared  to  that  of  Homer;  the  author  of  the  "  Reponse 
d'un  Academicien  de  Berlin  "  was  declared  to  be  a  "  faiseur 
de  libelles  sans  genie,"  and  "  imposteur  effronte,"  a  "  mal- 
heureux  ecrivain ";  while  the  "  Reponse "  itself  was  a 
"  grossierete  plate,"  whose  publication  was  an  "  action 
malicieuse,  lache,  infame,"  a  "  brigandage  affreux."  The 
presence  of  the  royal  insignia  only  intensified  the  futility 
of  the  outburst.  "  L'aigle,  le  sceptre,  et  la  couronne,"  wrote 
Voltaire  to  Madame  Denis,  "  sont  bien  etonnes  de  se  trouver 
1^."  But  one  thing  was  now  certain:  the  King  had  joined 
the  fray.  Voltaire's  blood  was  up,  and  he  was  not  sorry. 
A  kind  of  exaltation  seized  him;  from  this  moment  his  course 
was  clear — ^he  would  do  as  much  damage  as  he  could,  and 


192  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

then  leave  Prussia  for  ever.  And  it  so  happened  that  just 
then  an  unexpected  opportunity  occurred  for  one  of  those 
furious  onslaughts  so  dear  to  his  heart,  with  that  weapon 
which  he  knew  so  well  how  to  wield.  "  Je  n'ai  point  de 
sceptre,"  he  ominously  shot  out  to  Madame  Denis,  "  mais 
j'ai  une  plume." 

Meanwhile  the  life  of  the  Court — which  passed  for  the 
most  part  at  Potsdam,  in  the  little  palace  of  Sans  Souci 
which  Frederick  had  built  for  himself — proceeded  on  its 
accustomed  course.  It  was  a  singular  life,  half  military, 
half  monastic,  rigid,  retired,  from  which  all  the  ordinary 
pleasures  of  society  were  strictly  excluded.  "  What  do  you 
do  here?  "  one  of  the  royal  princes  was  once  asked.  "  We 
conjugate  the  verb  s'ennuyer"  was  the  reply.  But,  wherever 
he  might  be,  that  was  a  verb  unknown  to  Voltaire.  Shut  up 
all  day  in  the  strange  little  room,  still  preserved  for  the 
eyes  of  the  curious,  with  its  windows  opening  on  the  formal 
garden,  and  its  yellow  walls  thickly  embossed  with  the 
brightly  coloured  shapes  of  fruits,  flowers,  and  birds,  the 
indefatigable  old  man  worked  away  at  his  histories,  his 
tragedies,  his  Pucelle,  and  his  enormous  correspondence. 
He  was,  of  course,  ill — very  ill;  he  was  probably,  in  fact, 
upon  the  brink  of  death;  but  he  had  grown  accustomed  to 
that  situation;  and  the  worse  he  grew  the  more  furiously 
he  worked.  He  was  a  victim,  he  declared,  of  erysipelas, 
dysentery,  and  scurvy;  he  was  constantly  attacked  by  fever, 
and  all  his  teeth  had  fallen  out.  But  he  continued  to  work. 
On  one  occasion  a  friend  visited  him,  and  found  him  in  bed. 
"  J'ai  quatre  maladies  mortelles,"  he  wailed.  "  Pourtant," 
remarked  the  friend,  "  vous  avez  I'oeil  fort  bon."    Voltaire 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      193 

leapt  up  from  the  pillows:  "  Ne  savez-vous  pas,"  he  shouted, 
"  que  les  scorbutiques  meurent  I'oeil  enflamme?  "  When  the 
evening  came  it  was  time  to  dress,  and,  in  all  the  pomp  of 
flowing  wig  and  diamond  order,  to  proceed  to  the  little  music- 
room,  where  his  Majesty,  after  the  business  of  the  day,  was 
preparing  to  relax  himself  upon  the  flute.  The  orchestra 
was  gathered  together;  the  audience  was  seated;  the  con- 
certo began.  And  then  the  sounds  of  beauty  flowed  and 
trembled,  and  seemed,  for  a  little  space,  to  triumph  over  the 
pains  of  the  living  and  the  hard  hearts  of  men;  and  the  royal 
master  poured  out  his  skill  in  some  long  and  elaborate 
cadenza,  and  the  adagio  came,  the  marvellous  adagio,  and 
the  conqueror  of  Rossbach  drew  tears  from  the  author  of 
Candide.  But  a  moment  later  it  was  supper-time;  and  the 
night  ended  in  the  oval  dining  room,  amid  laughter  and 
champagne,  the  ejaculations  of  La  Mettrie,  the  epigrams  of 
Maupertuis,  the  sarcasms  of  Frederick,  and  the  devastating 
coruscations  of  Voltaire. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  the  jests  and  roses,  everyone  could 
hear  the  rumbling  of  the  volcano  under  the  ground.  Every- 
one could  hear,  but  nobody  would  listen;  the  little  flames 
leapt  up  through  the  surface,  but  still  the  gay  life  went 
on;  and  then  the  irruption  came.  Voltaire's  enemy  had 
written  a  book.  In  the  intervals  of  his  more  serious  labours, 
the  President  had  put  together  a  series  of  "Letters,"  in 
which  a  number  of  miscellaneous  scientific  subjects  were 
treated  in  a  mildly  speculative  and  popular  style.  The  vol- 
ume was  ratlier  dull,  and  very  unimportant;  but  it  happened 
to  appear  at  this  particular  moment,  and  Voltaire  pounced 
upon  it  with  the  swift  swoop  of  a  hawk  on  a  mouse.    The 


194  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

famous  Diatribe  du  Docteur  Akakia  is  still  fresh  with  a 
fiendish  gaiety  after  a  hundred  and  fifty  years;  but  to  realise 
to  the  full  the  skill  and  malice  which  went  to  the  making 
of  it,  one  must  at  least  have  glanced  at  the  flat  insipid 
production  which  called  it  forth,  and  noted  with  what  a  dia- 
bolical art  the  latent  absurdities  in  poor  Maupertuis'  reveries 
have  been  detected,  dragged  forth  into  the  light  qi  day, 
and  nailed  to  the  pillory  of  an  immortal  ridicule.  The 
Diatribe,  however,  is  not  all  mere  laughter;  there  is  a  real 
criticism  in  it,  too.  For  instance,  it  was  not  simply  a  farcical 
exaggeration  to  say  that  Maupertuis  had  set  out  to  prove 
the  existence  of  God  by  "  A  plus  B  divided  by  Z  ";  in 
substance,  the  charge  was  both  important  and  well  founded. 
"Lorsque  la  metaphysique  entre  dans  la  geometrie,"  Vol- 
taire wrote  in  a  private  letter  some  months  afterwards,  "  c'est 
Arimane  qui  entre  dans  le  royaume  d'Oromasde,  et  qui  y 
apporte  des  tenebres  ";  and  Maupertuis  had  in  fact  vitiated 
his  treatment  of  the  "  principle  of  least  action  "  by  his  meta- 
physical pre-occupations.  Indeed,  all  through  Voltaire's 
pamphlet,  there  is  an  implied  appeal  to  true  scientific  prin- 
ciples, an  underlying  assertion  of  the  paramount  importance 
of  the  experimental  method,  a  consistent  attack  upon  a  priori 
reasoning,  loose  statement,  and  vague  conjecture.  But  of 
course,  mixed  with  all  this,  and  covering  it  all,  there  is  a 
bubbling,  sparkling  fountain  of  effervescent  raillery — cruel, 
personal,  insatiable — the  raillery  of  a  demon  with  a  grudge. 
The  manuscript  was  shown  to  Frederick,  who  laughed  till 
the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks.  But,  between  his  gasps,  he 
forbade  Voltaire  to  publish  it  on  pain  of  his  most  terrible 
displeasure.    Naturally  Voltaire  was  profuse  with  promises, 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      195 

and  a  few  days  later,  under  a  royal  licence  obtained  for 
another  work,  the  little  book  appeared  in  print.  Frederick 
still  managed  to  keep  his  wrath  within  bounds:  he  collected 
all  the  copies  of  the  edition  and  had  them  privately  de- 
stroyed; he  gave  a  furious  wigging  to  Voltaire;  and  he  flat- 
tered himself  that  he  had  heard  the  last  of  the  business. 

Ne  vous  embarrassez  de  rien,  mon  cher  Maupertuis  [he  wrote 
to  the  President  in  his  singular  orthography] ;  I'affaire  des 
libelles  est  finie.  J'ai  parle  si  vrai  a  I'home,  je  lui  ai  lave  si  bien 
la  tete  que  je  ne  crois  pas  qu'il  y  retourne,  et  je  connais  son  ame 
lache,  incapable  de  sentiments  d'honneur.  Je  I'ai  intimide  du 
cote  de  la  boursse,  ce  qui  a  fait  tout  I'effet  que  j'attendais.  Je 
lui  ai  declare  enfin  nettement  que  ma  maison  devait  etre  un 
sanctuaire  et  non  une  retraite  de  brigands  ou  de  celerats  qui 
distillent  des  poissons. 

Apparently  it  did  not  occur  to  Frederick  that  this  decla- 
ration had  come  a  little  late  in  the  day.  Meanwhile  Mauper- 
tuis, overcome  by  illness  and  by  rage,  had  taken  to  his  bed. 
"  Un  peu  trop  d'amour-propre,"  Frederick  wrote  to  Darget, 
"Fa  rendu  trop  sensible  aux  manoeuvres  d'un  singe  qu'il 
devait  mepriser  apres  qu'on  I'avait  fouette."  But  now  the 
monkey  had  been  whipped,  and  doubtless  all  would  be  well. 
It  seems  strange  that  Frederick  should  still,  after  more  than 
two  years  of  close  observation,  have  had  no  notion  of  the 
material  he  was  dealing  with.  He  might  as  well  have  sup- 
posed that  he  could,  stop  a  mountain  torrent  in  spate  with 
a  wave  of  his  hand,  as  have  imagined  that  he  could  impose 
obedience  upon  Voltaire  in  such  a  crisis  by  means  of  a  lec- 
ture and  a  threat "  du  cote  de  la  boursse."  Before  the  month 
was  out  all  Germany  was  swarming  with  Akakias;  thousands 
of  copies  were  being  printed  in  Holland;  and  editions  were 


196  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

going  off  in  Paris  like  hot  cakes.  It  is  difficult  to  withhold 
one's  admiration  from  the  audacious  old  spirit  who  thus, 
on  the  mere  strength  of  his  mother-wits,  dared  to  defy  the 
enraged  master  of  a  powerful  state.  "  Votre  effronterie 
m'etonne,"  fulminated  Frederick  in  a  furious  note,  when 
he  suddenly  discovered  that  all  Europe  was  ringing  with  the 
absurdity  of  the  man  whom  he  had  chosen  to  be  the  Presi- 
dent of  his  favourite  Academy,  whose  cause  he  had  publicly 
espoused,  and  whom  he  had  privately  assured  of  his  royal 
protection.  "Ah!  Mon  Dieu,  Sire,"  scribbled  Voltaire  on 
the  same  sheet  of  paper,  "  dans  I'etat  ou  je  suis!  "  He  was, 
of  course,  once  more  dying.  "  Quoi!  vous  me  jugeriez  sans 
entendre!  Je  demande  justice  et  la  mort."  Frederick  re- 
plied by  having  copies  of  Akakia  burnt  by  the  common 
hangman  in  the  streets  of  Berlin.  Voltaire  thereupon  re- 
turned his  Order,  his  gold  key,  and  his  pension.  It  might 
have  been  supposed  that  the  final  rupture  had  now  really 
come  at  last.  But  three  months  elapsed  before  Frederick 
could  bring  himself  to  realise  that  all  was  over,  and  to  agree 
to  the  departure  of  his  extraordinary  guest.  Carlyle's  sug- 
gestion that  this  last  delay  arose  from  the  unwillingness 
of  Voltaire  to  go,  rather  than  from  Frederick's  desire  to 
keep  him,  is  plainly  controverted  by  the  facts.  The  King 
not  only  insisted  on  Voltaire's  accepting  once  again  the 
honours  which  he  had  surrendered,  but  actually  went  so  far 
as  to  write  him  a  letter  of  forgiveness  and  reconciliation. 
But  the  poet  would  not  relent;  there  was  a  last  week  of 
suppers  at  Potsdam — "  soupers  de  Damocles  "  Voltaire 
called  them;  and  then,  on  March  26,  1753,  the  two  men 
parted  for  ever. 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      197 

The  storm  seemed  to  be  over;  but  the  tail  of  it  was  still 
hanging  in  the  wind.  Voltaire,  on  his  way  to  the  waters 
of  Plombieres,  stopped  at  Leipzig,  where  he  could  not  resist, 
in  spite  of  his  repeated  promises  to  the  contrary,  the  tempta- 
tion to  bring  out  a  new  and  enlarged  edition  of  Akakia. 
Upon  this  Maupertuis  utterly  lost  his  head:  he  wrote  to 
Voltaire,  threatening  him  with  personal  chastisement.  Vol- 
taire issued  yet  another  edition  of  Akakia,  appended  a 
somewhat  unauthorised  version  of  the  President's  letter,  and 
added  that  if  the  dangerous  and  cruel  man  really  persisted 
in  his  threat  he  would  be  received  with  a  vigorous  discharge 
from  those  instruments  of  intimate  utility  which  figure  so 
freely  in  the  comedies  of  Moliere.  This  stroke  was  the  coup 
de  grace  of  Maupertuis.  Shattered  in  body  and  mind,  he 
dragged  himself  from  Berlin  to  die  at  last  in  Basle  under 
the  ministrations  of  a  couple  of  Capuchins  and  a  Protestant 
valet  reading  aloud  the  Genevan  Bible.  In  the  meantime 
Frederick  had  decided  on  a  violent  measure.  He  had  sud- 
denly remembered  that  Voltaire  had  carried  off  with  him 
one  of  the  very  few  privately  printed  copies  of  those  poetical 
works  upon  which  he  had  spent  so  much  devoted  labour; 
it  occurred  to  him  that  they  contained  several  passages  of 
a  highly  damaging  kind;  and  he  could  feel  no  certainty  that 
those  passages  would  not  be  given  to  the  world  by  the 
malicious  Frenchman.  Such,  at  any  rate,  were  his  own  ex- 
cuses for  the  step  which  he  now  took;  but  it  seems  possible 
that  he  was  at  least  partly  swayed  by  feelings  of  resentment 
and  revenge  which  had  been  rendered  uncontrollable  by  the 
last  onslaught  upon  Maupertuis.  Whatever  may  have  been 
his  motives,  it  is  certain  that  he  ordered  the  Prussian  Res- 


198  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

ident  in  Frankfort,  which  was  Voltaire's  next  stopping-place, 
to  hold  the  poet  in  arrest  until  he  delivered  over  the  royal 
volume.  A  multitude  of  strange  blunders  and  ludicrous  in- 
cidents followed,  upon  which  much  controversial  and  patri- 
otic ink  has  been  spilt  by  a  succession  of  French  and  Ger- 
man biographers.  To  an  English  reader  it  is  clear  that  in 
this  little  comedy  of  errors  none  of  the  parties  concerned 
can  escape  from  blame — that  Voltaire  was  hysterical,  un- 
dignified, and  untruthful,  that  the  Prussian  Resident  was 
stupid  and  domineering,  that  Frederick  was  careless  in  his 
orders  and  cynical  as  to  their  results.  Nor,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
need  any  Englishman  be  reminded  that  the  consequences 
of  a  system  of  government  in  which  the  arbitrary  will  of 
an  individual  takes  the  place  of  the  rule  of  law  are  apt  to 
be  disgraceful  and  absurd. 

After  five  weeks'  detention  at  Frankfort,  Voltaire  was 
free — free  in  every  sense  of  the  word — free  from  the  service 
of  Kings  and  the  clutches  of  Residents,  free  in  his  own  mind, 
free  to  shape  his  own  destiny.  He  hesitated  for  several 
months,  and  then  settled  down  by  the  Lake  of  Geneva. 
There  the  fires,  which  had  lain  smouldering  so  long  in  the 
profundities  of  his  spirit,  flared  up,  and  flamed  over  Europe, 
towering  and  inextinguishable.  In  a  few  years  letters  be- 
gan to  flow  once  more  to  and  from  Berlin.  At  first  the  old 
grievances  still  rankled;  but  in  time  even  the  wrongs  of 
Maupertuis  and  the  misadventures  of  Frankfort  were  almost 
forgotten.  Twenty  years  passed,  and  the  King  of  Prussia 
was  submitting  his  verses  as  anxiously  as  ever  to  Voltaire, 
whose  compliments  and  cajoleries  were  pouring  out  in  their 
accustomed  stream.    But  their  relationship  was  no  longer 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT      199 

that  of  master  and  pupil,  courtier  and  King;  it  was  that  of 
two  independent  and  equal  powers.  Even  Frederick  the 
Great  was  forced  to  see  at  last  in  the  Patriarch  of  Ferney 
something  more  than  a  monkey  with  a  genius  for  French 
versification.  He  actually  came  to  respect  the  author  of 
Akakia,  and  to  cherish  his  memory.  "  Je  lui  fais  tons  les 
matins  ma  priere,"  he  told  d'Alembert,  when  Voltaire  had 
been  two  years  in  the  grave;  "  je  lui  dis,  Divin  Voltaire,  ora 
pro  nobis." 

1915- 


THE  ROUSSEAU  AFFAIR 


JEAN  JACQUES  ROUSSEAU 


THE  ROUSSEAU  AFFAIR 

No  one  who  has  made  the  sHghtest  expedition  into  that 
curious  and  fascinating  country,  Eighteenth-Century  France, 
can  have  come  away  from  it  without  at  least  one  impression 
strong  upon  him — that  in  no  other  place  and  at  no  other 
time  have  people  ever  squabbled  so  much.  France  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  whatever  else  it  may  have  been — ^how- 
ever splendid  in  genius,  in  vitality,  in  noble  accomplishment 
and  high  endeavour — was  certainly  not  a  quiet  place  to  live 
in.  One  could  never  have  been  certain,  when  one  woke  up 
in  the  morning,  whether,  before  the  day  was  out,  one  would 
not  be  in  the  Bastille  for  something  one  had  said  at  dinner, 
or  have  quarrelled  with  half  one's  friends  for  something  one 
had  never  said  at  all. 

Of  all  the  disputes  and  agitations  of  that  agitated  age  none 
is  more  remarkable  than  the  famous  quarrel  between  Rous- 
seau and  his  friends,  which  disturbed  French  society  for  so 
many  years,  and  profoundly  affected  the  life  and  the  charac- 
ter of  the  most  strange  and  perhaps  the  most  potent  of  the 
precursors  of  the  Revolution.  The  affair  is  constantly  crop- 
ping up  in  the  literature  of  the  time;  it  occupies  a  prominent 
place  in  the  later  books  of  the  Confessions;  and  there  is  an 
account  of  its  earlier  phases — an  account  written  from  the 
anti-Rousseau  point  of  view — in  the  Memoires  of  Madame 
d'Epinay.  The  whole  story  is  an  exceedingly  complex  one, 
and  all  the  details  of  it  have  never  been  satisfactorily  ex- 

203 


204  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

plained;  but  the  general  verdict  of  subsequent  writers  has 
been  decidedly  hostile  to  Rousseau,  though  it  has  not  sub- 
scribed to  all  the  virulent  abuse  poured  upon  him  by  his  ene- 
mies at  the  time  of  the  quarrel.  This,  indeed,  is  precisely  the 
conclusion  which  an  unprejudiced  reader  of  the  Confessions 
would  naturally  come  to.  Rousseau's  story,  even  as  he  him- 
self tells  it,  does  not  carry  conviction.  He  would  have  us  be- 
lieve that  he  was  the  victim  of  a  vast  and  diabolical  conspir- 
acy, of  which  Grimm  and  Diderot  were  the  moving  spirits, 
which  succeeded  in  alienating  from  him  his  dearest  friends, 
and  which  eventually  included  all  the  ablest  and  most  distin- 
guished persons  of  the  age.  Not  only  does  such  a  conspiracy 
appear,  upon  the  face  of  it,  highly  improbable,  but  the  evi- 
dence which  Rousseau  adduces  to  prove  its  existence  seems 
totally  insufficient;  and  the  reader  is  left  under  the  impres- 
sion that  the  unfortunate  Jean  Jacques  was  the  victim,  not 
of  a  plot  contrived  by  rancorous  enemies,  but  of  his  own  per- 
plexed, suspicious,  and  deluded  mind.  This  conclusion  is 
supported  by  the  account  of  the  affair  given  by  contempo- 
raries, and  it  is  still  further  strengthened  by  Rousseau's  own 
writings  subsequent  to  the  Confessions,  where  his  endless  re- 
criminations, his  elaborate  hypotheses,  and  his  wild  infer- 
ences bear  all  the  appearance  of  mania.  Here  the  matter  has 
rested  for  many  years;  and  it  seemed  improbable  that  any 
fresh  reasons  would  arise  for  reopening  the  question.  Mrs. 
F.  Macdonald,  however,  in  a  recently-published  work,^  has 
produced  some  new  and  important  evidence,  which  throws 
entirely  fresh  light  upon  certain  obscure  parts  of  this  doubt- 

^Jean  Jacques  Rousseau:  a  New  Criticism,  by  Frederika  Macdonald. 
In  two  volumes.  Chapman  and  Hall. 


THE  ROUSSEAU  AFFAIR  205 

ful  history;  and  is  possibly  of  even  greater  interest.  For  it  is 
Mrs.  Macdonald's  contention  that  her  new  discovery  com- 
pletely overturns  the  orthodox  theory,  establishes  the  guilt 
of  Grimm,  Diderot,  and  the  rest  of  the  anti-Rousseau  party, 
and  proves  that  the  story  told  in  the  Confessions  is  simply 
the  truth. 

If  these  conclusions  do  really  follow  from  Mrs.  Macdon- 
ald's newly-discovered  data,  it  would  be  difficult  to  over- 
estimate the  value  of  her  work,  for  the  result  of  it  would  be 
nothing  less  than  a  revolution  in  our  judgments  upon  some 
of  the  principal  characters  of  the  eighteenth  century.  To 
make  it  certain  that  Diderot  was  a  cad  and  a  cheat,  that 
d'Alembert  was  a  dupe,  and  Hume  a  liar — that,  surely,  were 
no  small  achievement.  And,  even  if  these  conclusions  do  not 
follow  from  Mrs.  Macdonald's  data,  her  work  will  still  be 
valuable,  owing  to  the  data  themselves.  Her  discoveries  are 
important,  whatever  inferences  may  be  drawn  from  them; 
and  for  this  reason  her  book,  "which  represents"  as  she 
tells  us,  "  twenty  years  of  research,"  will  be  welcome  to  all 
students  of  that  remarkable  age. 

Mrs.  Macdonald's  principal  revelations  relate  to  the 
Mimoires  of  Madame  d'Epinay.  This  work  was  first  printed 
in  1 81 8,  and  the  concluding  quarter  of  it  contains  an  account 
of  the  Rousseau  quarrel,  the  most  detailed  of  all  those  writ- 
ten from  the  anti-Rousseau  point  of  view.  It  has,  however, 
always  been  doubtful  how  far  the  Memoires  were  to  be 
trusted  as  accurate  records  of  historical  fact.  The  manu- 
script disappeared;  but  it  was  known  that  the  characters 
who,  in  the  printed  book,  appear  under  the  names  of  real 
persons,  were  given  pseudon5niis  in  the  original  document; 


2o6  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

and  many  of  the  minor  statements  contradicted  known 
events.  Had  Madame  d'Epinay  merely  intended  to  write  a 
roman  a  clef?  What  seemed,  so  far  as  concerned  the  Rous- 
seau narrative,  to  put  this  hypothesis  out  of  court  was  the 
fact  that  the  story  of  the  quarrel  as  it  appears  in  the 
Memoires  is,  in  its  main  outlines,  substantiated  both  by 
Grimm's  references  to  Rousseau  in  his  Correspondance  Lit- 
tiraire,  and  by  a  brief  memorandum  of  Rousseau's  miscon- 
duct, drawn  up  by  Diderot  for  his  private  use,  and  not  pub- 
lished until  many  years  after  Madame  d'Epinay's  death. 
Accordingly  most  writers  on  the  subject  have  taken  the  ac- 
curacy of  the  Mimoires  for  granted;  Sainte-Beuve,  for  in- 
stance, prefers  the  word  of  Madame  d'Epinay  to  that  of 
Rousseau,  when  there  is  a  direct  conflict  of  testimony; 
and  Lord  Morley,  in  his  well-known  biography,  uses  the 
Memoires  as  an  authority  for  many  of  the  incidents  which  he 
relates.  Mrs.  Macdonald's  researches,  however,  have  put  an 
entirely  different  complexion  on  the  case.  She  has  discov- 
ered the  manuscript  from  which  the  Memoires  were  printed, 
and  she  has  examined  the  original  draft  of  this  manuscript, 
which  had  been  unearthed  some  years  ago,  but  whose  full 
import  had  been  unaccountably  neglected  by  previous  schol- 
ars. From  these  researches,  two  facts  have  come  to  light. 
In  the  first  place,  the  manuscript  differs  in  many  respects 
from  the  printed  book,  and,  in  particular,  contains  a  con- 
clusion of  two  hundred  sheets,  which  has  never  been  printed 
at  all;  the  alterations  were  clearly  made  in  order  to  conceal 
the  inaccuracies  of  the  manuscript;  and  the  omitted  con- 
clusion is  frankly  and  palpably  a  fiction.  And  in  the  second 
place,  the  original  draft  of  the  manuscript  turns  out  to  be 


THE  ROUSSEAU  AFFAIR  207 

the  work  of  several  hands;  it  contains,  especially  in  those  por- 
tions which  concern  Rousseau,  many  erasures,  corrections, 
and  notes,  while  several  pages  have  been  altogether  cut  out; 
most  of  the  corrections  were  made  by  Madame  d'Epinay  her- 
self; but  in  nearly  every  case  these  corrections  carry  out  the 
instructions  in  the  notes;  and  the  notes  themselves  are  in  the 
handwriting  of  Diderot  and  Grimm.  Mrs.  Macdonald  gives 
several  facsimiles  of  pages  in  the  original  draft,  which  amply 
support  her  description  of  it;  but  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  be- 
fore long  she  will  be  able  to  produce  a  new  and  complete  edi- 
tion of  the  Memoires,  with  all  the  manuscript  alterations 
clearly  indicated;  for  until  then  it  will  be  difficult  to  realise 
the  exact  condition  of  the  text.  However,  it  is  now  beyond 
dispute  both  that  Madame  d'Epinay's  narrative  cannot  be 
regarded  as  historically  accurate,  and  that  its  agreement  with 
the  statements  of  Grimm  and  Diderot  is  by  no  means  an  in- 
dependent confirmation  of  its  truth,  for  Grimm  and  Diderot 
themselves  had  a  hand  in  its  compilation. 

Thus  far  we  are  on  firm  ground.  But  what  are  the  con- 
clusions which  Mrs.  Macdonald  builds  up  from  these  founda- 
tions? The  account,  she  says,  of  Rousseau's  conduct  and 
character,  as  it  appears  in  the  printed  version,  is  hostile  to- 
him,  but  it  was  not  the  account  which  Madame  d'Epinay 
herself  originally  wrote.  The  hostile  narrative  was,  in  effect, 
composed  by  Grimm  and  Diderot,  who  induced  Madame 
d'Epinay  to  substitute  it  for  her  own  story;  and  thus  her  own 
story  could  not  have  agreed  with  theirs.  Madame  d'Epinay 
knew  the  truth;  she  knew  that  Rousseau's  conduct  had  been 
honourable  and  wise;  and  so  she  had  described  it  in  her 
book;  until,  falling  completely  under  the  influence  of  Grimm 


2o8  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

and  Diderot,  she  had  allowed  herself  to  become  the  instru- 
ment for  blackening  the  reputation  of  her  old  friend.  Mrs. 
Macdonald  paints  a  lurid  picture  of  the  conspirators  at  work 
— of  Diderot  penning  his  false  and  malignant  instructions,  of 
Madame  d'Epinay's  half-unwilling  hand  putting  the  last 
touches  to  the  fraud,  of  Grimm,  rushing  back  to  Paris  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution,  and  risking  his  life  in  order  to  make 
quite  certain  that  the  result  of  all  these  efforts  should  reach 
posterity.  Well!  it  would  be  difficult — perhaps  it  would  be 
impossible — to  prove  conclusively  that  none  of  these  things 
ever  took  place.  The  facts  upon  which  Mrs.  Macdonald  lays 
so  much  stress — the  mutilations,  the  additions,  the  instruct- 
ing notes,  the  proved  inaccuracy  of  the  story  the  manuscripts 
tell — these  facts,  no  doubt,  may  be  explained  by  Mrs.  Mac- 
donald's  theories;  but  there  are  other  facts — no  less  impor- 
tant, and  no  less  certain — which  are  in  direct  contradiction 
to  Mrs.  Macdonald's  view,  and  over  which  she  passes  as 
lightly  as  she  can.  Putting  aside  the  question  of  the 
MSmoires,  we  know  nothing  of  Diderot  which  would  lead  us 
to  entertain  for  a  moment  the  supposition  that  he  was  a  dis- 
honourable and  badhearted  man;  we  do  know  that  his  writ- 
ings bear  the  imprint  of  a  singularly  candid,  noble,  and  fear- 
less mind;  we  do  know  that  he  devoted  his  life,  unflinchingly 
and  unsparingly,  to  a  great  cause.  We  know  less  of  Grimm; 
but  it  is  at  least  certain  that  he  was  the  intimate  friend  of 
Diderot,  and  of  many  more  of  the  distinguished  men  of  the 
time.  Is  all  this  evidence  to  be  put  on  one  side  as  of  no  ac- 
count? Are  we  to  dismiss  it,  as  Mrs.  Macdonald  dismisses 
it,  as  merely  "  psychological "?  Surely  Diderot's  reputa- 
tion as  an  honest  man  is  as  much  a  fact  as  his  notes  in  th^ 


THE  ROUSSEAU  AFFAIR  209 

draft  of  the  Mimoires.  It  is  quite  true  that  his  reputation 
may  have  been  ill-founded^  that  d'Alembert,  and  Turgot, 
and  Hume  may  have  been  deluded,  or  may  have  been 
bribed,  into  admitting  him  to  their  friendship;  but  is  it  not 
clear  that  we  ought  not  to  believe  any  such  h5^otheses  as 
these  until  we  have  before  us  such  convincing  proof  of 
Diderot's  guilt  that  we  must  believe  them?  Mrs.  Macdonald 
declares  that  she  has  produced  such  proof;  and  she  points 
triumphantly  to  her  garbled  and  concocted  manuscripts.  If 
there  is  indeed  no  explanation  of  these  garblings  and  concoc- 
tions other  than  that  which  Mrs.  Macdonald  puts  forward — 
that  they  were  the  outcome  of  a  false  and  malicious  con- 
spiracy to  blast  the  reputation  of  Rousseau — then  we  must 
admit  that  she  is  right,  and  that  all  our  general  "  psychologi- 
cal "  considerations  as  to  Diderot's  reputation  in  the  world 
must  be  disregarded.  But,  before  we  come  to  this  conclu- 
sion, how  careful  must  we  be  to  examine  every  other  possible 
explanation  of  Mrs.  Macdonald's  facts,  how  rigorously  must 
we  sift  her  own  explanation  of  them,  how  eagerly  must  we 
seize  upon  every  loophole  of  escape! 

It  is,  I  believe,  possible  to  explain  the  condition  of  the 
d'Epinay  manuscript  without  having  recourse  to  the  icono- 
clastic theory  of  Mrs.  Macdonald.  To  explain  everything, 
indeed,  would  be  out  of  the  question,  owing  to  our  insufficient 
data,  and  the  extreme  complexity  of  the  events;  all  that  we 
can  hope  to  do  is  to  suggest  an  explanation  which  will  ac- 
count for  the  most  important  of  the  known  facts.  Not  the 
least  interesting  of  Mrs.  Macdonald's  discoveries  went  to 
show  that  the  Mimoires,  so  far  from  being  historically  ac- 
curate, were  in  reality  full  of  unfounded  statements,  that 


210  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

they  concluded  with  an  entirely  imaginary  narrative,  and 
that,  in  short,  they  might  be  described,  almost  without  exag- 
geration, in  the  very  words  with  which  Grimm  himself  actu- 
ally did  describe  them  in  his  Correspondance  Litteraire  as 
"  I'ebauche  d'un  long  roman."  Mrs.  Macdonald  eagerly  lays 
emphasis  upon  this  discovery,  because  she  is,  of  course, 
anxious  to  prove  that  the  most  damning  of  all  the  accounts  of 
Rousseau's  conduct  is  an  untrue  one.  But  she  has  proved 
too  much.  The  Memoires,  she  says,  are  a  fiction;  therefore 
the  writers  of  them  were  liars.  The  answer  is  obvious :  why 
should  we  not  suppose  that  the  writers  were  not  liars  at  all, 
but  simply  novelists?  Will  not  this  hypothesis  fit  into  the 
facts  just  as  well  as  Mrs.  Macdonald's?  Madame  d'Epinay, 
let  us  suppose,  wrote  a  narrative,  partly  imaginary  and 
partly  true,  based  upon  her  own  experiences,  but  without 
any  strict  adherence  to  the  actual  course  of  events,  and  filled 
with  personages  whose  actions  were,  in  many  cases,  fictitious, 
but  whose  characters  were,  on  the  whole,  moulded  upon  the 
actual  characters  of  her  friends.  Let  us  suppose  that  when 
she  had  finished  her  work — a  work  full  of  subtle  observation 
and  delightful  writing — she  showed  it  to  Grimm  and  Diderot. 
They  had  only  one  criticism  to  make:  it  related  to  her  treat- 
ment of  the  character  which  had  been  moulded  upon  that  of 
Rousseau.  "  Your  Rousseau,  chere  Madame,  is  a  very  poor 
affair  indeed!  The  most  salient  points  in  his  character  seem 
to  have  escaped  you.  We  know  what  that  man  really  was. 
We  know  how  he  behaved  at  that  time.  C'itait  un  homme  a 
jaire  peur.  You  have  missed  a  great  opportunity  of  drawing 
a  fine  picture  of  a  hypocritical  rascal."  Whereupon  they 
gave  her  their  own  impressions  of  Rousseau's  conduct,  they 


THE  ROUSSEAU  AFFAIR  211 

showed  her  the  letters  that  had  passed  between  them,  and 
they  jotted  down  some  notes  for  her  guidance.  She  re-wrote 
the  story  in  accordance  with  their  notes  and  their  anecdotes; 
but  she  rearranged  the  incidents,  she  condensed  or  amplified 
the  letters,  as  she  thought  fit — for  she  was  not  writing  a  his- 
tory, but  "  I'ebauche  d'un  long  roman."  If  we  suppose  that 
this,  or  something  like  this,  was  what  occurred,  shall  we  not 
have  avoided  the  necessity  for  a  theory  so  repugnant  to  com- 
mon-sense as  that  which  would  impute  to  a  man  of  recog- 
nised integrity  the  meanest  of  frauds? 

To  follow  Mrs.  Macdonald  into  the  inner  recesses  and 
elaborations  of  her  argument  would  be  a  difficult  and  tedious 
task.  The  circumstances  with  which  she  is  principally  con- 
cerned— the  suspicions,  the  accusations,  the  anonymous  let- 
ters, the  intrigues,  the  endless  problems  as  to  whether 
Madame  d'Epinay  was  jealous  of  Madame  d'Houdetot, 
whether  Therese  told  fibs,  whether,  on  the  14th  of  the  month, 
Grimm  was  grossly  impertinent,  and  whether,  on  the  15th, 
Rousseau  was  outrageously  rude,  whether  Rousseau  revealed 
a  secret  to  Diderot,  which  Diderot  revealed  to  Saint-Lam- 
bert, and  whether,  if  Diderot  revealed  it,  he  believed  that 
Rousseau  had  revealed  it  before — these  circumstances  form, 
as  Lord  Morley  says,  "  a  tale  of  labyrinthine  nightmares," 
and  Mrs.  Macdonald  has  done  very  little  to  mitigate  either 
the  contortions  of  the  labyrinths  or  the  horror  of  the  dreams. 
Her  book  is  exceedingly  ill-arranged;  it  is  enormously  long, 
filling  two  large  volumes,  with  an  immense  apparatus  of  ap- 
pendices and  notes;  it  is  full  of  repetitions  and  of  irrelevant 
matter;  and  the  argument  is  so  indistinctly  set  forth  that 
even  an  instructed  reader  finds  great  difficulty  in  following 


212  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

its  drift.  Without,  however,  plunging  into  the  abyss  of  com- 
plications which  yawns  for  us  in  Mrs.  Macdonald's  pages,  it 
may  be  worth  while  to  touch  upon  one  point  with  which  she 
has  dealt  (perhaps  wisely  for  her  own  case!)  only  very 
slightly — the  question  of  the  motives  which  could  have  in- 
duced Grimm  and  Diderot  to  perpetuate  a  series  of  malig- 
nant lies. 

It  is,  doubtless,  conceivable  that  Grimm,  who  was  Madame 
d'Epinay's  lover,  was  jealous  of  Rousseau,  who  was  Madame 
d'Epinay's  friend.  We  know  very  little  of  Grimm's  charac- 
ter, but  what  we  do  know  seems  to  show  that  he  was  a  jealous 
man  and  an  ambitious  man;  it  is  possible  that  a  close  alliance 
with  Madame  d'Epinay  may  have  seemed  to  him  a  necessary 
step  in  his  career;  and  it  is  conceivable  that  he  may  have  de- 
termined not  to  rest  until  his  most  serious  rival  in  Madame 
d'Epinay's  affections  was  utterly  cast  out.  He  was  prob- 
ably prejudiced  against  Rousseau  from  the  beginning,  and 
he  may  have  allowed  his  prejudices  to  colour  his  view  of 
Rousseau's  character  and  acts.  The  violence  of  the  abuse 
which  Grimm  and  the  rest  of  the  Encyclopaedists  hurled 
against  the  miserable  Jean  Jacques  was  certainly  quite  out 
of  proportion  to  the  real  facts  of  the  case.  Whenever  he  is 
mentioned  one  is  sure  of  hearing  something  about  traitre 
and  mensonge  and  sciUratesse.  He  is  referred  to  as  often  as 
not  as  if  he  were  some  dangerous  kind  of  wild  beast.  This 
was  Grimm's  habitual  language  with  regard  to  him ;  and  this 
was  the  view  of  his  character  which  Madame  d'Epinay  finally 
expressed  in  her  book.  The  important  question  is — did 
Grimm  know  that  Rousseau  was  in  reality  an  honourable 
man,  and,  knowing  this,  did  he  deliberately  defame  him  in 


THE  ROUSSEAU  AFFAIR  213 

order  to  drive  him  out  of  Madame  d'Epinay's  affections? 
The  answer,  I  think,  must  be  in  the  negative,  for  the  follow- 
ing reason.  If  Grimm  had  known  that  there  was  something 
to  be  ashamed  of  in  the  notes  with  which  he  had  supplied 
Madame  d'Epinay,  and  which  led  to  the  alteration  of  her 
Memoires,  he  certainly  would  have  destroyed  the  draft  of  the 
manuscript,  which  was  the  only  record  of  those  notes  having 
ever  been  made.  As  it  happens,  we  know  that  he  had  the 
opportunity  of  destroying  the  draft,  and  he  did  not  do  so. 
He  came  to  Paris  at  the  risk  of  his  life  in  1791,  and  stayed 
there  for  four  months,  with  the  object,  according  to  his  own 
account,  of  collecting  papers  belonging  to  the  Empress 
Catherine,  or,  according  to  Mrs.  Macdonald's  account,  of 
having  the  rough  draft  of  the  Memoires  copied  out  by  his 
secretary.  Whatever  his  object,  it  is  certain  that  the  copy — 
that  from  which  ultimately  the  Memoires  were  printed — ^was 
made  either  at  that  time,  or  earlier;  and  that  there  was  noth- 
ing on  earth  to  prevent  him,  during  the  four  months  of  his 
stay  in  Paris,  from  destroying  the  draft.  Mrs.  Macdonald's 
explanation  of  this  difficulty  is  lamentably  weak.  Grimm, 
she  says,  must  have  wished  to  get  away  from  Paris  "  without 
arousing  suspicion  by  destroying  papers."  This  is  indeed  an 
"  exquisite  reason,"  which  would  have  delighted  that  good 
knight  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek.  Grimm  had  four  months  at 
his  disposal;  he  was  undisturbed  in  his  own  house;  why 
should  he  not  have  burnt  the  draft  page  by  page  as  it  was 
copied  out?  There  can  be  only  one  reply:  Why  should  he? 
If  it  is  possible  to  suggest  some  fairly  plausible  motives 
which  might  conceivably  have  induced  Grimm  to  blacken 
Rousseau's  character,  the  case  of  Diderot  presents  difficulties 


214  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

which  are  quite  insurmountable.  Mrs.  Macdonald  asserts 
that  Diderot  was  jealous  of  Rousseau.  Why?  Because  he 
was  tired  of  hearing  Rousseau  described  as  "  the  virtuous  "; 
that  is  all.  Surely  Mrs.  Macdonald  should  have  been  the 
first  to  recognise  that  such  an  argument  is  a  little  too  "  psy- 
chological." The  truth  is  that  Diderot  had  nothing  to  gain 
by  attacking  Rousseau.  He  was  not,  like  Grimm,  in  love 
with  Madame  d'Epinay;  he  was  not  a  newcomer  who  had 
still  to  win  for  himself  a  position  in  the  Parisian  world.  His 
acquaintance  with  Madame  d'Epinay  was  slight;  and,  if 
there  were  any  advances,  they  were  from  her  side,  for  he  was 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  the  day.  In  fact,  the 
only  reason  that  he  could  have  had  for  abusing  Rousseau 
was  that  he  believed  Rousseau  deserved  abuse.  Whether  he 
was  right  in  believing  so  is  a  very  different  question.  Most 
readers,  at  the  present  day,  now  that  the  whole  noisy  contro- 
versy has  long  taken  its  quiet  place  in  the  perspective  of 
Time,  would,  I  think,  agree  that  Diderot  and  the  rest  of  the 
Encyclopaedists  were  mistaken.  As  we  see  him  now,  in  that 
long  vista,  Rousseau  was  not  a  wicked  man;  he  was  an  un- 
fortunate, a  distracted,  a  deeply  sensitive,  a  strangely  com- 
plex, creature;  and,  above  all  else,  he  possessed  one  quality 
which  cut  him  off  from  his  contemporaries,  which  set  an  im- 
mense gulf  betwixt  him  and  them:  he  was  modern.  Among 
those  quick,  strong,  fiery  people  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
he  belonged  to  another  world — to  the  new  world  of  self-con- 
sciousness, and  doubt,  and  hesitation,  of  mysterious  melan- 
choly and  quiet  intimate  delights,  of  long  reflexions  amid  the 
solitudes  of  Nature,  of  infinite  introspections  amid  the  soli- 
tudes of  the  heart.    Who  can  wonder  that  he  was  misunder- 


THE  ROUSSEAU  AFFAIR  215 

stood,  and  buffeted,  and  driven  mad?  Who  can  wonder  that, 
in  his  agitations,  his  perplexities,  his  writhings,  he  seemed, 
to  the  pupils  of  Voltaire,  little  less  than  a  frenzied  fiend? 
"Get  homme  est  un  forcene!  "  Diderot  exclaims.  "Je 
tache  en  vain  de  faire  de  la  poesie,  mais  cet  homme  me  revi- 
ent  tout  a  travers  mon  travail;  il  me  trouble,  et  je  suis  comme 
si  i 'avals  a  cote  de  moi  un  damne:  il  est  damne,  cela  est  stir 
.  ^  .  J'avoue  que  je  n'ai  jamais  eprouve  un  trouble  d'ame  si 
terrible  que  celui  que  j'ai  .  .  .  Que  je  ne  revoie  plus  cet 
homme-la,  il  me  ferait  croire  au  diable  et  a  I'enfer.  Si  je  suis 
jamais  force  de  retourner  chez  lui,  je  suis  sur  que  je  fremirai 
tout  le  long  du  chemin:  j 'avals  la  fievre  en  revenant  .  .  . 
On  entendait  ses  cris  jusqu'au  bout  du  jardin;  et  je  le  voyais! 
.  .  .  Les  poetes  ont  bien  fait  de  mettre  un  intervalle  im- 
mense entre  le  ciel  et  les  enfers.  En  verite,  le  main  me  trem- 
ble." Every  word  of  that  is  stamped  with  sincerity;  Diderot 
was  writing  from  his  heart.  But  he  was  wrong;  the  "  inter- 
valle immense,"  across  which,  so  strangely  and  so  horribly, 
he  had  caught  glimpses  of  what  he  had  never  seen  before, 
was  not  the  abyss  between  heaven  and  hell,  but  between  the 
old  world  and  the  new. 

1907. 


THE  POETRY  OF  BLAKE 


THE  POETRY  OF  BLAKE  ^ 

The  new  edition  of  Blake's  poetical  works,  published  by  the 
Clarendon  Press,  will  be  welcomed  by  every  lover  of  English 
poetry.  The  volume  is  worthy  of  the  great  university  under 
whose  auspices  it  has  been  produced,  and  of  the  great  artist 
whose  words  it  will  help  to  perpetuate.  Blake  has  been, 
hitherto,  singularly  unfortunate  in  his  editors.  With  a  single 
exception,  every  edition  of  his  poems  up  to  the  present  time 
has  contained  a  multitude  of  textual  errors  which,  in  the 
case  of  any  other  writer  of  equal  eminence,  would  have  been 
well-nigh  inconceivable.  The  great  majority  of  these  errors 
were  not  the  result  of  accident:  they  were  the  result  of  de- 
liberate falsification.  Blake's  text  has  been  emended  and 
corrected  and  "  improved,"  so  largely  and  so  habitually,  that 
there  was  a  very  real  danger  of  its  becoming  permanently 
corrupted;  and  this  danger  was  all  the  more  serious,  since  the 
work  of  mutilation  was  carried  on  to  an  accompaniment  of 
fervent  admiration  of  the  poet.  "  It  is  not  a  little  bewilder- 
ing," says  Mr.  Sampson,  the  present  editor,  "  to  find  one 
great  poet  and  critic  extolling   Blake   for  the   '  glory  of 

1  The  Poetical  Works  of  William  Blake.  A  new  and  verbatim  text 
from  the  manuscript,  engraved,  and  letter-press  originals,  with  variorum 
readings  and  bibliographical  notes  and  prefaces.  By  John  Sampson, 
Librarian  in  the  University  of  Liverpool.  Oxford:  At  the  Clarendon 
Press,   1905. 

The  Lyrical  Poems  of  William  Blake.  Text  by  John  Sampson, 
with  an  Introduction  by  Walter  Raleigh.  Oxford:  At  the  Clarendon 
Press,  1905. 

219 


220  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

metre '  and  *  the  sonorous  beauty  of  lyrical  work '  in  the 
two  opening  lyrics  of  the  Songs  of  Experience,  while  he  in- 
troduces into  the  five  short  stanzas  quoted  no  less  than  seven 
emendations  of  his  own,  involving  additions  of  syllables  and 
important  changes  of  meaning."  This  is  Procrustes  admir- 
ing the  exquisite  proportions  of  his  victim.  As  one  observes 
the  countless  instances  accumulated  in  Mr.  Sampson's  notes, 
of  the  clippings  and  filings  to  which  the  free  and  spontaneous 
expression  of  Blake's  genius  has  been  subjected,  one  is  re- 
minded of  a  verse  in  one  of  his  own  lyrics,  where  he  speaks 
of  the  beautiful  garden  in  which — 

Priests  in  black  gowns  were  walking  their  rounds, 
And  binding  with  briers  my  joys  and  desires; 

and  one  cannot  help  hazarding  the  conjecture,  that  Blake's 
prophetic  vision  recognised,  in  the  lineaments  of  the  "  priests 
in  black  gowns,"  most  of  his  future  editors.  Perhaps, 
though,  if  Blake's  prescience  had  extended  so  far  as  this,  he 
would  have  taken  a  more  drastic  measure;  and  we  shudder 
to  think  of  the  sort  of  epigram  with  which  the  editorial  efforts 
of  his  worshippers  might  have  been  rewarded.  The  present 
edition,  however,  amply  compensates  for  the  past.  Mr. 
Sampson  gives  us,  in  the  first  place,  the  correct  and  entire 
text  of  the  poems,  so  printed  as  to  afford  easy  reading  to 
those  who  desire  access  to  the  text  and  nothing  more.  At  the 
same  time,  in  a  series  of  notes  and  prefaces,  he  has  provided 
an  elaborate  commentary,  containing,  besides  all  the  vari- 
orum readings,  a  great  mass  of  bibliographical  and  critical 
matter;  and,  in  addition,  he  has  enabled  the  reader  to  obtain 
a  due  through  the  labyrinth  of  Blake's  mythology,  by  means 


THE  POETRY  OF  BLAKE  221 

of  ample  quotations  from  those  passages  in  the  Prophetic 
Books,  which  throw  light  upon  the  obscurities  of  the  poems. 
The  most  important  Blake  document — the  Rossetti  MS. — 
has  been  freshly  collated,  with  the  generous  aid  of  the  owner, 
Mr.  W.  A.  White,  to  whom  the  gratitude  of  the  public  is  due 
in  no  common  measure;  and  the  long-lost  Pickering  MS. — 
the  sole  authority  for  some  of  the  most  mystical  and  absorb- 
ing of  the  poems — was,  with  deserved  good  fortune,  discov- 
ered by  Mr.  Sampson  in  time  for  collation  in  the  present  edi- 
tion. Thus  there  is  hardly  a  line  in  the  volume  which  has 
not  been  reproduced  from  an  original,  either  written  or  en- 
graved by  the  hand  of  Blake.  Mr.  Sampson's  minute  and 
ungrudging  care,  his  high  critical  acumen,  and  the  skill  with 
which  he  has  brought  his  wide  knowledge  of  the  subject  to 
bear  upon  the  difficulties  of  the  text,  combine  to  make  his 
edition  a  noble  and  splendid  monument  of  English  scholar- 
ship. It  will  be  long  indeed  before  the  poems  of  Blake  cease 
to  afford  matter  for  fresh  discussions  and  commentaries  and 
interpretations;  but  it  is  safe  to  predict  that,  so  far  as  their 
form  is  concerned,  they  will  henceforward  remain  un- 
changed. There  will  be  no  room  for  further  editing.  The 
work  has  been  done  by  Mr.  Sampson,  once  and  for  all. 

In  the  case  of  Blake,  a  minute  exactitude  of  text  is  par- 
ticularly important,  for  more  than  one  reason.  Many  of  his 
effects  depend  upon  subtle  differences  of  punctuation  and  of 
spelling,  which  are  too  easily  lost  in  reproduction.  "  Tiger, 
tiger,  burning  bright,"  is  the  ordinary  version  of  one  of  his 
most  celebrated  lines.  But  in  Blake's  original  engraving  the 
words  appear  thus — "Tyger!  Tyger!  burning  bright  ";  and 
who  can  fail  to  perceive  the  difference?    Even  more  remark- 


222  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

able  is  the  change  which  the  omission  of  a  single  stop  has  pro- 
duced in  the  last  line  of  one  of  the  succeeding  stanzas  of  the 
same  poem. 

And  what  shoulder,  and  what  art, 
Could  twist  the  sinews  of  thy  heart? 
And  when  thy  heart  began  to  beat, 
What  dread  hand?  and  what  dread  feet? 

So  Blake  engraved  the  verse;  and,  as  Mr.  Sampson  points 
out,  "  the  terrible,  compressed  force  "  of  the  final  line  van- 
ishes to  nothing  in  the  "  languid  punctuation  "  of  subsequent 
editions: — "  What  dread  hand  and  what  dread  feet?  "  It  is 
hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say,  that  the  re-discovery  of  this 
line  alone  would  have  justified  the  appearance  of  the  present 
edition. 

But  these  considerations  of  what  may  be  called  the  me- 
chanics of  Blake's  poetry  are  not — important  as  they  are — 
the  only  justification  for  a  scrupulous  adherence  to  his  auto- 
graph text.  Blake's  use  of  language  was  not  guided  by  the 
ordinarily  accepted  rules  of  writing;  he  allowed  himself  to  be 
trammelled  neither  by  prosody  nor  by  grammar;  he  wrote, 
with  an  extraordinary  audacity,  according  to  the  mysterious 
dictates  of  his  own  strange  and  intimate  conception  of  the 
beautiful  and  the  just.  Thus  his  compositions,  amenable  to 
no  other  laws  than  those  of  his  own  making,  fill  a  unique 
place  in  the  poetry  of  the  world.  They  are  the  rebels  and 
atheists  of  literature,  or  rather,  they  are  the  sanctuaries  of 
an  Unknown  God;  and  to  invoke  that  deity  by  means  of 
orthodox  incantations  is  to  run  the  risk  of  hell  fire. 
Editors  may  punctuate  afresh  the  text  of  Shakespeare  with 
impunity,  and  perhaps  even  with  advantage;   but  add  a 


THE  POETRY  OF  BLAKE  223 

comma  to  the  text  of  Blake,  and  you  put  all  Heaven  in  a 
rage.  You  have  laid  your  hands  upon  the  Ark  of  the  Cove- 
nant. Nor  is  this  all.  When  once,  in  the  case  of  Blake,  the 
slightest  deviation  has  been  made  from  the  authoritative  ver- 
sion, it  is  hardly  possible  to  stop  there.  The  emendator  is  on 
an  inclined  plane  which  leads  him  inevitably  from  readjust- 
ments of  punctuation  to  corrections  of  grammar,  and  from 
corrections  of  grammar  to  alterations  of  rhythm;  if  he  is  in 
for  a  penny,  he  is  in  for  a  pound.  The  first  poem  in  the  Ros- 
setti  MS.  may  be  adduced  as  one  instance — out  of  the  enor- 
mous number  which  fill  Mr.  Sampson's  notes — of  the  dangers 
of  editorial  laxity. 

I  told  my  love,  I  told  my  love, 

I  told  her  all  my  heart; 
Trembling,  cold,  in  ghastly  fears, 

Ah!  she  doth  depart. 

This  is  the  first  half  of  the  poem;  and  editors  have  been  con- 
tented with  an  alteration  of  stops,  and  the  change  of  "  doth  " 
into  "did."  But  their  work  was  not  over;  they  had,  as  it 
were,  tasted  blood;  and  their  version  of  the  last  four  lines 
of  the  poem  is  as  follows: 

Soon  after  she  was  gone  from  me, 

A  traveller  came  by. 
Silently,  invisibly: 

He  took  her  with  a  sigh. 

Reference  to  the  MS.,  however,  shows  that  the  last  line  had 
been  struck  out  by  Blake,  and  another  substituted  in  its 
place — a  line  which  is  now  printed  for  the  first  time  by  Mr. 
Sampson.    So  that  the  true  reading  of  the  verse  is: 


224  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Soon  as  she  was  gone  from  me, 

A  traveller  came  by, 
Silently,  invisibly — 

01  was  no  deny. 

After  these  exertions,  it  must  have  seemed  natural  enough  to 
Rossetti  and  his  successors  to  print  four  other  expunged  lines 
as  part  of  the  poem,  and  to  complete  the  business  by  clapping 
a  title  to  their  concoction — Love's  Secret — a  title  which 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  had  ever  entered  the  poet's 
mind. 

Besides  illustrating  the  shortcomings  of  his  editors,  this 
little  poem  is  an  admirable  instance  of  Blake's  most  persist- 
ent quality — his  triumphant  freedom  from  conventional  re- 
straints. His  most  characteristic  passages  are  at  once  so  un- 
expected and  so  complete  in  their  effect,  that  the  reader  is 
moved  by  them,  spontaneously,  to  some  conjecture  of  "  in- 
spiration." Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  indeed,  in  his  interesting  In- 
troduction to  a  smaller  edition  of  the  poems,  protests  against 
such  attributions  of  peculiar  powers  to  Blake,  or  indeed  to 
any  other  poet.  "  No  man,"  he  says,  "  destitute  of  genius, 
could  live  for  a  day."  But  even  if  we  all  agree  to  be  inspired 
together,  we  must  still  admit  that  there  are  degrees  of  in- 
spiration; if  Mr.  F's  aunt  was  a  woman  of  genius,  what  are 
we  to  say  of  Hamlet?  And  Blake,  in  the  hierarchy  of  the 
inspired,  stands  very  high  indeed.  If  one  could  strike  an 
average  among  poets,  it  would  probably  be  true  to  say  that, 
so  far  as  inspiration  is  concerned,  Blake  is  to  the  average 
poet,  as  the  average  poet  is  to  the  man  in  the  street.  All 
poetry,  to  be  poetry  at  all,  must  have  the  power  of  making 
one,  now  and  then,  involuntarily  ejaculate:    "What  made 


THE  POETRY  OF  BLAKE  225 

him  think  of  that?  "  With  Blake,  one  is  asking  the  question 
all  the  time. 

Blake's  originality  of  manner  was  not,  as  has  sometimes 
been  the  case,  a  cloak  for  platitude.  What  he  has  to  say  be- 
longs no  less  distinctly  to  a  mind  of  astonishing  self-depend- 
ence than  his  way  of  saying  it.  In  English  literature,  as  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh  observes,  he  "  stands  outside  the  regular  line 
of  succession."  All  that  he  had  in  common  with  the  great 
leaders  of  the  Romantic  Movement  was  an  abhorrence  of  the 
conventionality  and  the  rationalism  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury; for  the  eighteenth  century  itself  was  hardly  more  alien 
to  his  spirit  than  that  exaltation  of  Nature — the  "  Vegetable 
Universe,"  as  he  called  it — from  which  sprang  the  pantheism 
of  Wordsworth  and  the  paganism  of  Keats.  "  Nature  is  the 
work  of  the  Devil,"  he  exclaimed  one  day;  "  the  Devil  is  in 
us  as  far  as  we  are  Nature."  There  was  no  part  of  the  sen- 
sible world  which,  in  his  philosophy,  was  not  impregnated 
with  vileness.  Even  the  "  ancient  heavens  "  were  not,  to  his 
uncompromising  vision,  "  fresh  and  strong ";  they  were 
"  writ  with  Curses  from  Pole  to  Pole,"  and  destined  to  van- 
ish into  nothingness  with  the  triumph  of  the  Everlasting 
Gospel. 

There  are  doubtless  many  to  whom  Blake  is  known  simply 
as  a  charming  and  splendid  lyrist,  as  the  author  of  Infant 
Joy,  and  The  Tiger,  and  the  rest  of  the  Songs  of  Innocence 
and  Experience.  These  poems  show  but  faint  traces  of  any 
system  of  philosophy;  but,  to  a  reader  of  the  Rossetti  and 
Pickering  MSS.,  the  presence  of  a  hidden  and  symbolic 
meaning  in  Blake's  words  becomes  obvious  enough — a  mean- 
ing which  receives  its  fullest  expression  in  the  Prophetic 


226  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Books.  It  was  only  natural  that  the  extraordinary  nature 
of  Blake's  utterance  in  these  latter  works  should  have  given 
rise  to  the  belief  that  he  was  merely  an  inspired  idiot — a 
madman  who  happened  to  be  able  to  write  good  verses.  That 
belief,  made  finally  impossible  by  Mr.  Swinburne's  elaborate 
Essay,  is  now,  happily,  nothing  more  than  a  curiosity  of  lit- 
erary history;  and  indeed  signs  are  not  wanting  that  the 
whirligig  of  Time,  which  left  Blake  for  so  long  in  the  Para- 
dise of  Fools,  is  now  about  to  place  him  among  the  Prophets. 
Anarchy  is  the  most  fashionable  of  creeds;  and  Blake's  writ- 
ings, according  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  contain  a  complete  ex- 
position of  its  doctrines.  The  same  critic  asserts  that  Blake 
was  "  one  of  the  most  consistent  of  English  poets  and 
thinkers."  This  is  high  praise  indeed;  but  there  seems  to  be 
some  ambiguity  in  it.  It  is  one  thing  to  give  Blake  credit 
for  that  sort  of  consistency  which  lies  in  the  repeated  enunci- 
ation of  the  same  body  of  beliefs  throughout  a  large  mass  of 
compositions  and  over  a  long  period  of  time,  and  which  could 
never  be  possessed  by  a  madman  or  an  incoherent  charlatan. 
It  is  quite  another  thing  to  assert  that  his  doctrines  form  in 
themselves  a  consistent  whole,  in  the  sense  in  which  that 
quality  would  be  ordinarily  attributed  to  a  system  of  phi- 
losophy. Does  Sir  Walter  mean  to  assert  that  Blake  is,  in 
this  sense  too,  "  consistent "?  It  is  a  little  difficult  to  dis- 
cover. Referring,  in  his  Introduction,  to  Blake's  abusive 
notes  on  Bacon's  Essays,  he  speaks  of —  * 

The  sentimental  enthusiast,  who  worships  all  great  men  indif- 
ferently [and  who]  finds  himself  in  a  distressful  position  when 
his  gods  fall  out  among  themselves.  His  case  [Sir  Walter  wittily 
adds]  is  not  much  unlike  that  of  Terah,  the  father  of  Abraham, 


THE  POETRY  OF  BLAKE  227 

who  (if  the  legend  be  true)  was  a  dealer  in  idols  among  the 
Chaldees,  and,  coming  home  to  his  shop  one  day,  after  a  brief 
absence,  found  that  the  idols  had  quarrelled,  and  the  biggest  of 
them  had  smashed  the  rest  to  atoms.  Blake  is  a  dangerous  idol 
for  any  man  to  keep  in  his  shop. 

We  wonder  very  much  whether  he  is  kept  in  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh's. 

It  seems  clear,  at  any  rate,  that  no  claim  for  a  "  consist- 
ency "  which  would  imply  freedom  from  self-contradiction 
can  be  validly  made  for  Blake.  His  treatment  of  the  prob- 
lem of  evil  is  enough  to  show  how  very  far  he  was  from  that 
clarity  of  thought  without  which  even  prophets  are  liable, 
when  the  time  comes,  to  fall  into  disrepute.  "  Plato,"  said 
Blake,  "  knew  of  nothing  but  the  virtues  and  vices,  and  good 
and  evil.  There  is  nothing  in  all  that.  Everything  is  good 
in  God's  eyes."  And  this  is  the  perpetual  burden  of  his 
teaching.  "  Satan's  empire  is  the  empire  of  nothing  ";  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  evil — it  is  a  mere  "  negation,"  And  the 
"  moral  virtues,"  which  attempt  to  discriminate  between 
right  and  wrong,  are  the  idlest  of  delusions;  they  are  merely 
"  allegories  and  dissimulations,"  they  "  do  not  exist."  Such 
was  one  of  the  most  fundamental  of  Blake's  doctrines;  but 
it  requires  only  a  superficial  acquaintance  with  his  writings 
to  recognise  that  their  whole  tenour  is  an  implicit  contradic- 
tion of  this  very  belief.  Every  page  he  wrote  contains  a 
moral  exhortation;  bad  thoughts  and  bad  feelings  raised  in 
him  a  fury  of  rage  and  indignation  which  the  bitterest  of 
satirists  never  surpassed.  His  epigrams  on  Re5molds  are 
masterpieces  of  virulent  abuse;  the  punishment  which  he  de- 
vised for  Klopstock — ^his  impersonation  of  "  flaccid  fluency 


228  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

and  devout  sentiment  " — is  unprintable;  as  for  those  who  at- 
tempt to  enforce  moral  laws,  they  shall  be  "  cast  out,"  for 
they  "  crucify  Christ  with  the  head  downwards."  The  con- 
tradiction is  indeed  glaring.  "  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
wickedness,"  Blake  says  in  effect,  "  and  you  are  wicked  if 
you  think  there  is."  If  it  is  true  that  evil  does  not  exist,  all 
Blake's  denunciations  are  so  much  empty  chatter;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  if  there  is  a  real  distinction  between  good  and 
bad,  if  everything,  in  fact,  is  not  good  in  God's  eyes — then 
why  not  say  so?  Really  Blake,  as  politicians  say,  "  cannot 
have  it  both  ways." 

But,  of  course,  his  answer  to  all  this  is  simple  enough.  To 
judge  him  according  to  the  light  of  reason  is  to  make  an  ap- 
peal to  a  tribunal  whose  jurisdiction  he  had  always  refused 
to  recognise  as  binding.  In  fact,  to  Blake's  mind,  the  laws 
of  reason  were  nothing  but  a  horrible  phantasm  deluding  and 
perplexing  mankind,  from  whose  clutches  it  is  the  business 
of  every  human  soul  to  free  itself  as  speedily  as  possible. 
Reason  is  the  "  spectre  "  of  Blake's  mythology,  that  spectre, 
which,  he  says, 

Around  me  night  and  day 
Like  a  wild  beast  guards  my  way. 

It  is  a  malignant  spirit,  for  ever  struggling  with  the  "  Ema- 
nation," or  imaginative  side  of  man,  whose  triumph  is  the 
supreme  end  of  the  universe.  Ever  since  the  day  when,  in 
his  childhood,  Blake  had  seen  God's  forehead  at  the  window, 
he  had  found  in  imaginative  vision  the  only  reality  and  the 
only  good.  He  beheld  the  things  of  this  world  "  not  with, 
but  through,  the  eye  ": 


THE  POETRY  OF  BLAKE  ii^ 

With  my  inward  Eye,  'tis  an  old  Man  grey, 
With  my  outward,  a  Thistle  across  my  way. 

It  was  to  the  imagination,  and  the  imagination  alone,  that 
Blake  yielded  the  allegiance  of  his  spirit.  His  attitude 
towards  reason  was  the  attitude  of  the  mystic;  and  it  in- 
volved an  inevitable  dilemma.  He  never  could,  in  truth, 
quite  shake  himself  free  of  his  "  spectre  ";  struggle  as  he 
would,  he  could  not  escape  altogether  from  the  employment 
of  the  ordinary  forms  of  thought  and  speech;  he  is  constantly 
arguing,  as  if  argument  were  really  a  means  of  approaching 
the  truth;  he  was  subdued  to  what  he  worked  in.  As  in  his 
own  poem,  he  had,  somehow  or  other,  been  locked  into  a 
crystal  cabinet — the  world  of  the  senses  and  of  reason — a 
gilded,  artificial,  gimcrack  dwelling,  after  "  the  wild  "  where 
he  had  danced  so  merrily  before. 

I  strove  to  seize  the  inmost  Form 
With  ardour  fierce  and  hands  of  flame, 

But  burst  the  Crystal  Cabinet, 
And  like  a  Weeping  Babe  became — 

A  weeping  Babe  upon  the  wild.  .  .  . 

To  be  able  to  lay  hands  upon  "  the  inmost  form,"  one  must 
achieve  the  impossible;  one  must  be  inside  and  outside  the 
crystal  cabinet  at  the  same  time.  But  Blake  was  not  to  be 
turned  aside  by  such  considerations.  He  would  have  it  both 
ways;  and  whoever  demurred  was  crucifying  Christ  with  the 
head  downwards. 

Besides  its  unreasonableness,  there  is  an  even  more  serious 
objection  to  Blake's  mysticism — and  indeed  to  all  mysticism: 
its  lack  of  humanity.    The  mystic's  creed — even  when  ar- 


230  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

rayed  in  the  wondrous  and  ecstatic  beauty  of  Blake's  verse 
— comes  upon  the  ordinary  man,  in  the  rigidity  of  its  uncom- 
promising elevation,  with  a  shock  which  is  terrible,  and 
almost  cruel.  The  sacrifices  which  it  demands  are  too  vast, 
in  spite  of  the  divinity  of  what  it  has  to  offer.  What  shall 
it  profit  a  man,  one  is  tempted  to  exclaim,  if  he  gain  his  own 
soul,  and  lose  the  whole  world?  The  mystic  ideal  is  the 
highest  of  all;  but  it  has  no  breadth.  The  following  lines 
express,  with  a  simplicity  and  an  intensity  of  inspiration 
which  he  never  surpassed,  Blake's  conception  of  that  ideal: 

And  throughout  all  Eternity 
I  forgive  you,  you  forgive  me. 
As  our  dear  Redeemer  said: 
"  This  the  Wine,  &  this  the  Bread." 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  sort  of  comments  to  which  Voltaire, 
for  instance,  with  his  "  wracking  wheel "  of  sarcasm  and 
common-sense,  would  have  subjected  such  lines  as  these.  His 
criticism  would  have  been  irrelevant,  because  it  would  never 
have  reached  the  heart  of  the  matter  at  issue;  it  would  have 
been  based  upon  no  true  understanding  of  Blake's  words. 
But  that  they  do  admit  of  a  real,  an  unanswerable  criticism, 
it  is  difficult  to  doubt.  Charles  Lamb,  perhaps,  might  have 
made  it;  incidentally,  indeed,  he  has.  "  Sun,  and  sky,  and 
breeze,  and  solitary  walks,  and  summer  holidays,  and  the 
greenness  of  fields,  and  the  delicious  juices  of  meats  and 
fishes,  and  society,  and  the  cheerful  glass,  and  candle-light, 
and  fireside  conversations,  and  innocent  vanities,  and  jests, 
and  irony  itself" — do  these  things  form  no  part  of  your 
Eternity? 
The  truth  is  plain:    Blake  was  an  intellectual  drunkard. 


THE  POETRY  OF  BLAKE  231 

His  words  come  down  to  us  in  a  rapture  of  broken  fluency 
from  impossible  intoxicated  heights.  His  spirit  soared  above 
the  empyrean;  and,  even  as  it  soared,  it  stumbled  in  the  gut- 
ter of  Felpham.  His  lips  brought  forth,  in  the  same  breath, 
in  the  same  inspired  utterance,  the  Auguries  of  Innocence 
and  the  epigrams  on  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  He  was  in  no 
condition  to  chop  logic,  or  to  take  heed  of  the  existing  forms 
of  things.  In  the  imaginary  portrait  of  himself,  prefixed  to 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  volume,  we  can  see  him,  as  he  appeared 
to  his  own  "  inward  eye,"  staggering  between  the  abyss  and 
the  star  of  Heaven,  his  limbs  cast  abroad,  his  head  thrown 
back  in  an  ecstasy  of  intoxication,  so  that,  to  the  frenzy  of 
his  rolling  vision,  the  whole  universe  is  upside  down.  We 
look,  and,  as  we  gaze  at  the  strange  image  and  listen  to  the 
marvellous  melody,  we  are  almost  tempted  to  go  and  do 
likewise. 

But  it  is  not  as  a  prophet,  it  is  as  an  artist,  that  Blake  de- 
serves the  highest  honours  and  the  most  enduring  fame.  In 
spite  of  his  hatred  of  the  "  vegetable  universe,"  his  poems 
possess  the  inexplicable  and  spontaneous  quality  of  natural 
objects;  they  are  more  like  the  works  of  Heaven  than  the 
works  of  man.  They  have,  besides,  the  two  most  obvious 
characteristics  of  Nature — loveliness  and  power.  In  some 
of  his  lyrics  there  is  an  exquisite  simplicity,  which  seems,  like 
a  flower  or  a  child,  to  be  unconscious  of  itself.  In  his  poem 
of  The  Birds — to  mention,  out  of  many,  perhaps  a  less  known 
instance — it  is  not  the  poet  that  one  hears,  it  is  the  birds 
themselves. 

0  thou  summer's  harmony, 

1  have  lived  and  mourned  for  thee; 


232  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Each  day  I  mourn  along  the  wood, 
And  night  hath  heard  my  sorrows  loud. 

In  his  other  mood — the  mood  of  elemental  force — Blake  pro- 
duces effects  which  are  unique  in  literature.  His  mastery  of 
the  mysterious  suggestions  which  lie  concealed  in  words  is 
complete. 

He  who  torments  the  Chafer's  Sprite 
Weaves  a  Bower  in  endless  Night. 

What  dark  and  terrible  visions  the  last  line  calls  up!  And, 
with  the  aid  of  this  control  over  the  secret  springs  of  lan- 
guage, he  is  able  to  produce  in  poetry  those  vast  and  vague 
effects  of  gloom,  of  foreboding,  and  of  terror,  which  seem  to 
be  proper  to  music  alone.  Sometimes  his  words  are  heavy 
with  the  doubtful  horror  of  an  approaching  thunderstorm: 

The  Guests  are  scattered  thro'  the  land, 
For  the  Eye  altering  alters  all; 
The  Senses  roll  themselves  in  fear, 
And  the  flat  Earth  becomes  a  Ball; 

The  Stars,  Sun,  Moon,  all  shrink  away, 
A  desart  vast  without  a  bound. 
And  nothing  left  to  eat  or  drink. 
And  a  dark  desart  all  around. 

And  sometimes  Blake  invests  his  verses  with  a  sense  of  name- 
less and  infinite  ruin,  such  as  one  feels  when  the  drum  and 
the  violin  mysteriously  come  together,  in  one  of  Beethoven's 
Symphonies,  to  predict  the  annihilation  of  worlds: 

On  the  shadows  of  the  Moon, 
Climbing  through  Night's  highest  noon: 
In  Time's  Ocean  falling,  drowned: 
In  Aged  Ignorance  profound, 


THE  POETRY  OF  BLAKE  233 

Holy  and  cold,  I  clipp'd  the  Wings 
Of  all  Sublunary  Things  .  ,  . 
But  when  once  I  did  descry 
The  Immortal  Man  that  cannot  Die, 
Thro'  evening  shades  I  haste  away 
To  close  the  Labours  of  my  Day. 
The  Door  of  Death  I  open  found, 
And  the  Worm  Weaving  in  the  Ground; 
Thou'rt  my  Mother,  from  the  Womb; 
Wife,  Sister,  Daughter,  to  the  Tomb: 
Weaving  to  Dreams  the  Sexual  strife. 
And  weeping  over  the  Web  of  Life. 

Such  music  is  not  to  be  lightly  mouthed  by  mortals;  for 
us,  in  our  weakness,  a  few  strains  of  it,  now  and  then,  amid 
the  murmur  of  ordinary  converse,  are  enough.  For  Blake's 
words  will  always  be  strangers  on  this  earth;  they  could  only 
fall  with  familiarity  from  the  lips  of  his  own  Gods: 

above  Time's  troubled  fountains, 
On  the  great  Atlantic  Mountains, 
In  my  Golden  House  on  high. 

They  belong  to  the  language  of  Los  and  Rahab  and  Enithar- 
mon;  and  their  mystery  is  revealed  for  ever  in  the  land  of  the 
Sunflower's  desire. 

1906. 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN 

The  shrine  of  Poetry  is  a  secret  one;  and  it  is  fortunate  that 
this  should  be  the  case;  for  it  gives  a  sense  of  security.  The 
cult  is  too  mysterious  and  intimate  to  figure  upon  census 
papers;  there  are  no  turnstiles  at  the  temple  gates;  and  so, 
as  all  inquiries  must  be  fruitless,  the  obvious  plan  is  to  take 
for  granted  a  good  attendance  of  worshippers,  and  to  pass  on. 
Yet,  if  Apollo  were  to  come  down  (after  the  manner  of 
deities)  and  put  questions — must  we  suppose  to  the  Laure- 
ate?— as  to  the  number  of  the  elect,  would  we  be  quite  sure 
of  escaping  wrath  and  destruction?  Let  us  hope  for  the 
best;  and  perhaps,  if  we  were  bent  upon  finding  out  the 
truth,  the  simplest  way  would  be  to  watch  the  sales  of  the 
new  edition  of  the  poems  of  Beddoes,  which  Messrs.  Rout- 
ledge  have  lately  added  to  the  "  Muses'  Library."  How 
many  among  Apollo's  pew-renters,  one  wonders,  have  ever 
read  Beddoes,  or,  indeed,  have  ever  heard  of  him?  For  some 
reason  or  another,  this  extraordinary  poet  has  not  only  never 
received  the  recognition  which  is  his  due,  but  has  failed 
almost  entirely  to  receive  any  recognition  whatever.  If  his 
name  is  known  at  all,  it  is  known  in  virtue  of  the  one  or  two 
of  his  lyrics  which  have  crept  into  some  of  the  current  an- 
thologies. But  Beddoes'  highest  claim  to  distinction  does 
not  rest  upon  his  lyrical  achievements,  consummate  as  those 
achievements  are;  it  rests  upon  his  extraordinary  eminence 
as  a  master  of  dramatic  blank  verse.    Perhaps  his  greatest 

217 


238  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

misfortune  was  that  he  was  born  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  not  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth.  His 
proper  place  was  among  that  noble  band  of  Elizabethans, 
whose  strong  and  splendid  spirit  gave  to  England,  in  one 
miraculous  generation,  the  most  glorious  heritage  of  drama 
that  the  world  has  known.  If  Charles  Lamb  had  discovered 
his  tragedies  among  the  folios  of  the  British  Museum,  and 
had  given  extracts  from  them  in  the  Specimens  of  Dramatic 
Poets,  Beddoes'  name  would  doubtless  be  as  familiar  to  us 
now  as  those  of  Marlowe  and  Webster,  Fletcher  and  Ford. 
As  it  happened,  however,  he  came  as  a  strange  and  isolated 
phenomenon,  a  star  which  had  wandered  from  its  constella- 
tion, and  was  lost  among  alien  lights.  It  is  to  very  little  pur- 
pose that  Mr.  Ramsay  Colles,  his  latest  editor,  assures  us 
that  "  Beddoes  is  interesting  as  marking  the  transition  from 
Shelley  to  Browning  ";  it  is  to  still  less  purpose  that  he  points 
out  to  us  a  passage  in  Death's  Jest  Book  which  anticipates 
the  doctrines  of  the  Descent  of  Man.  For  Beddoes  cannot 
be  hoisted  into  line  with  his  contemporaries  by  such  methods 
as  these;  nor  is  it  in  the  light  of  such  after-considerations 
that  the  value  of  his  work  must  be  judged.  We  must  take 
him  on  his  own  merits,  "  unmixed  with  seconds  ";  we  must 
discover  and  appraise  his  peculiar  quality  for  its  own  sake. 


He  hath  skill  in  language; 
And  knowledge  is  in  him,  root,  flower,  and  fruit, 
A  palm  with  winged  imagination  in  it. 
Whose  roots  stretch  even  underneath  the  grave; 
And  on  them  hangs  a  lamp  of  magic  science 
In  his  soul's  deepest  mine,  where  folded  thoughts 
Lie  sleeping  on  the  tombs  of  magi  dead. 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  239 

If  the  neglect  suffered  by  Beddoes'  poetry  may  be  ac- 
counted for  in  more  ways  than  one,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  under- 
stand why  more  curiosity  has  never  been  aroused  by  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  Hf  e.  For  one  reader  who  cares  to  concern 
himself  with  the  intrinsic  merit  of  a  piece  of  writing  there  are 
a  thousand  who  are  ready  to  explore  with  eager  sjmipathy 
the  history  of  the  writer;  and  all  that  we  know  both  of  the 
life  and  the  character  of  Beddoes  possesses  those  very  quali- 
ties of  peculiarity,  mystery,  and  adventure,  which  are  so  dear 
to  the  hearts  of  subscribers  to  circulating  libraries.  Yet  only 
one  account  of  his  career  has  ever  been  given  to  the  public; 
and  that  account,  fragmentary  and  incorrect  as  it  is,  has  long 
been  out  of  print.  It  was  supplemented  some  years  ago  by 
Mr.  Gosse,  who  was  able  to  throw  additional  light  upon  one 
important  circumstance,  and  who  has  also  published  a  small 
collection  of  Beddoes'  letters.  The  main  biographical  facts, 
gathered  from  these  sources,  have  been  put  together  by  Mr. 
Ramsay  CoUes,  in  his  introduction  to  the  new  edition;  but 
he  has  added  nothing  fresh;  and  we  are  still  in  almost  com- 
plete ignorance  as  to  the  details  of  the  last  twenty  years  of 
Beddoes'  existence — full  as  those  years  certainly  were  of  in- 
terest and  even  excitement.  Nor  has  the  veil  been  altogether 
withdrawn  from  that  strange  tragedy  which,  for  the  strange 
tragedian,  was  the  last  of  all. 

Readers  of  Miss  Edgeworth's  letters  may  remember  that 
her  younger  sister,  Anne,  married  a  distinguished  Clifton 
physician.  Dr.  Thomas  Beddoes.  Their  eldest  son,  bom  in 
1 803,  was  named  Thomas  Lovell,  after  his  father  and  grand- 
father, and  grew  up  to  be  the  author  of  The  Bride's  Tragedy 
and  Death's  Jest  Book.   Dr  Beddoes  was  a  remarkable  man, 


240  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

endowed  with  high  and  varied  intellectual  capacities  and  a 
rare  independence  of  character.  His  scientific  attainments 
were  recognised  by  the  University  of  Oxford,  where  he  held 
the  post  of  Lecturer  in  Chemistry,  until  the  time  of  the 
French  Revolution,  when  he  was  obliged  to  resign  it,  owing 
to  the  scandal  caused  by  the  unconcealed  intensity  of  his  lib- 
eral opinions.  He  then  settled  at  Clifton  as  a  physician,  es- 
tablished a  flourishing  practice,  and  devoted  his  leisure  to 
politics  and  scientific  research.  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  who 
was  his  pupil,  and  whose  merit  he  was  the  first  to  bring  to 
light,  declared  that  "  he  had  talents  which  would  have  ex- 
alted him  to  the  pinnacle  of  philosophical  eminence,  if  they 
had  been  applied  with  discretion."  The  words  are  curiously 
suggestive  of  the  history  of  his  son;  and  indeed  the  poet 
affords  a  striking  instance  of  the  hereditary  transmission  of 
mental  qualities.  Not  only  did  Beddoes  inherit  his  father's 
talents  and  his  father's  inability  to  make  the  best  use  of 
them;  he  possessed  in  a  no  less  remarkable  degree  his  father's 
independence  of  mind.  In  both  cases,  this  quality  was  cou- 
pled with  a  corresponding  eccentricity  of  conduct,  which  oc- 
casionally, to  puzzled  onlookers,  wore  the  appearance  of 
something  very  near  insanity.  Many  stories  are  related  of 
the  queer  behaviour  of  Dr.  Beddoes.  One  day  he  astonished 
the  ladies  of  Clifton  by  appearing  at  a  tea-party  with  a 
packet  of  sugar  in  his  hand;  he  explained  that  it  was  East 
Indian  sugar,  and  that  nothing  would  induce  him  to  eat  the 
usual  kind,  which  came  from  Jamaica  and  was  made  by 
slaves.  More  extraordinary  were  his  medical  prescriptions; 
for  he  was  in  the  habit  of  ordering  cows  to  be  conveyed  into 
his  patients'  bedrooms,  in  order,  as  he  said,  that  they  might 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  241 

"  inhale  the  animals'  breath."  It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  de- 
light which  the  singular  spectacle  of  a  cow  climbing  upstairs 
into  an  invalid's  bedroom  must  have  given  to  the  future  au- 
thor of  Ilarpagus  and  The  Oviparous  Tailor.  But  "  little 
Tom,"  as  Miss  Edgeworth  calls  him,  was  not  destined  to  en- 
joy for  long  the  benefit  of  parental  example;  for  Dr.  Beddoes 
died  in  the  prime  of  life,  when  the  child  was  not  yet  six 
years  old. 

The  genius  at  school  is  usually  a  disappointing  figure,  for, 
as  a  rule,  one  must  be  commonplace  to  be  a  successful  boy. 
In  that  preposterous  world,  to  be  remarkable  is  to  be  over- 
looked; and  nothing  less  vivid  than  the  white-hot  blaze  of  a 
Shelley  will  bring  with  it  even  a  distinguished  martyrdom. 
But  Beddoes  was  an  exception,  though  he  was  not  a  martyr. 
On  the  contrary,  he  dominated  his  fellows  as  absolutely  as 
if  he  had  been  a  dullard  and  a  dunce.  He  was  at  Charter- 
house; and  an  entertaining  account  of  his  existence  there  has 
been  preserved  to  us  in  a  paper  of  school  reminiscences,  writ- 
ten by  Mr.  C.  D.  Bevan,  who  had  been  his  fag.  Though  his 
place  in  the  school  was  high,  Beddoes'  interests  were  devoted 
not  so  much  to  classical  scholarship  as  to  the  literature  of  his 
own  tongue.  Cowley,  he  afterwards  told  a  friend,  had  been 
the  first  poet  he  had  understood;  but  no  doubt  he  had  begun 
to  understand  poetry  many  years  before  he  went  to  Charter- 
house; and,  while  he  was  there,  the  reading  which  he  chiefly 
delighted  in  was  the  Elizabethan  drama.  "  He  liked  act- 
ing," says  Mr.  Bevan,  "  and  was  a  good  judge  of  it,  and  used 
to  give  apt  though  burlesque  imitations  of  the  popular  actors, 
particularly  Kean  and  Macready.  Though  his  voice  was 
harsh  and  his  enunciation  offensively  conceited,  he  read  with 


242  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

so  much  propriety  of  expression  and  manner,  that  I  was 
always  glad  to  listen:  even  when  I  was  pressed  into  the 
service  as  his  accomplice,  his  enemy,  or  his  love,  with  a  due 
accompaniment  of  curses,  caresses,  or  kicks,  as  the  course  of 
his  declamation  required.  One  play  in  particular,  Marlowe's 
Tragedy  of  Dr.  Faustus,  excited  my  admiration  in  this  way; 
and  a  liking  for  the  old  English  drama,  which  I  still  retain, 
was  created  and  strengthened  by  such  recitations."  But 
Beddoes'  dramatic  performances  were  not  limited  to  the 
works  of  others;  when  the  occasion  arose  he  was  able  to  sup- 
ply the  necessary  material  himself.  A  locksmith  had  in- 
curred his  displeasure  by  putting  a  bad  lock  on  his  bookcase; 
Beddoes  vowed  vengeance;  and  when  next  the  man  appeared 
he  was  received  by  a  dramatic  interlude,  representing  his  last 
moments,  his  horror  and  remorse,  his  death,  and  the  funeral 
procession,  which  was  interrupted  by  fiends,  who  carried  off 
body  and  soul  to  eternal  torments.  Such  was  the  realistic 
vigour  of  the  performance  that  the  locksmith,  according  to 
Mr.  Bevan,  "  departed  in  a  storm  of  wrath  and  execrations, 
and  could  not  be  persuaded,  for  some  time,  to  resume  his 
work." 

Besides  the  interlude  of  the  wicked  locksmith,  Beddoes' 
school  compositions  included  a  novel  in  the  style  of  Fielding 
(which  has  unfortunately  disappeared),  the  beginnings  of  an 
Elizabethan  tragedy,  and  much  miscellaneous  verse.  In 
1820  he  left  Charterhouse,  and  went  to  Pembroke  College, 
Oxford,  where,  in  the  following  year,  while  still  a  freshman, 
he  published  his  first  volume.  The  Improvisatore,  a  series  of 
short  narratives  in  verse.  The  book  had  been  written  in  part 
while  he  was  at  school;  and  its  immaturity  is  obvious.    It 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  243 

contains  no  trace  of  the  nervous  vigour  of  his  later  style;  the 
verse  is  weak,  and  the  sentiment,  to  use  his  own  expression, 
"  Moorish."  Indeed,  the  only  interest  of  the  little  work  lies 
in  the  evidence  which  it  affords  that  the  singular  pre-occupa- 
tion  which  eventually  dominated  Beddoes'  mind  had,  even  in 
these  early  days,  made  its  appearance.  The  book  is  full  of 
death.  The  poems  begin  on  battle-fields  and  end  in  charnel- 
houses;  old  men  are  slaughtered  in  cold  blood,  and  lovers  are 
struck  by  lightning  into  mouldering  heaps  of  corruption. 
The  boy,  with  his  elaborate  exhibitions  of  physical  horror, 
was  doing  his  best  to  make  his  readers'  flesh  creep.  But  the 
attempt  was  far  too  crude;  and  in  after  years,  when  Beddoes 
had  become  a  past  master  of  that  difficult  art,  he  was  very 
much  ashamed  of  his  first  publication.  So  eager  was  he  to 
destroy  every  trace  of  its  existence,  that  he  did  not  spare 
even  the  finely-bound  copies  of  his  friends.  The  story  goes 
that  he  amused  himself  by  visiting  their  libraries  with  a  pen- 
knife, so  that,  when  next  they  took  out  the  precious  volume, 
they  found  the  pages  gone. 

Beddoes,  however,  had  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  his 
next  publication,  The  Bride* s  Tragedy,  which  appeared  in 
1822.  In  a  single  bound,  he  had  reached  the  threshold  of 
poetry,  and  was  knocking  at  the  door.  The  line  which  di- 
vides the  best  and  most  accomplished  verse  from  poetry  it- 
self— that  subtle  and  momentous  line  which  every  one  can 
draw,  and  no  one  can  explain — Beddoes  had  not  yet  crossed. 
But  he  had  gone  as  far  as  it  was  possible  to  go  by  the  aid  of 
mere  skill  in  the  art  of  writing,  and  he  was  still  in  his  twenti- 
eth year.  Many  passages  in  The  Bride's  Tragedy  seem  only 
to  be  waiting  for  the  breath  of  inspiration  which  will  bring 


244  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

them  into  life;  and  indeed,  here  and  there,  the  breath  has 
come,  the  warm,  the  true,  the  vital  breath  of  Apollo.  No  one, 
surely,  whose  lips  had  not  tasted  of  the  waters  of  Helicon, 
could  have  uttered  such  words  as  these: 

Here's  the  blue  violet,  like  Pandora's  eye, 
When  first  it  darkened  with  immortal  life; 

or  a  line  of  such  intense  imaginative  force  as  this: 
I've  huddled  her  into  the  wormy  earth; 

or  this  splendid  description  of  a  stormy  sunrise: 

The  day  is  in  its  shroud  while  yet  an  infant; 
And  Night  with  giant  strides  stalks  o'er  the  world, 
Like  a  swart  Cyclops,  on  its  hideous  front 
One  round,  red,  thunder-swollen  eye  ablaze. 

The  play  was  written  on  the  Elizabethan  model,  and,  as  a 
play,  it  is  disfigured  by  Beddoes'  most  characteristic  faults: 
the  construction  is  weak,  the  interest  fluctuates  from  charac- 
ter to  character,  and  the  motives  and  actions  of  the  charac- 
ters themselves  are  for  the  most  part  curiously  remote  from 
the  realities  of  life.  Yet,  though  the  merit  of  the  tragedy  de- 
pends almost  entirely  upon  the  verse,  there  are  signs  in  it 
that,  while  Beddoes  lacked  the  gift  of  construction,  he  never- 
theless possessed  one  important  dramatic  faculty — the  power 
of  creating  detached  scenes  of  interest  and  beauty.  The 
scene  in  which  the  half-crazed  Lenora  imagines  to  herself, 
beside  the  couch  on  which  her  dead  daughter  lies,  that  the 
child  is  really  living  after  all,  is  dramatic  in  the  highest  sense 
of  the  word;  the  situation,  with  all  its  capabilities  of  pathetic 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  24^ 

irony,  is  conceived  and  developed  with  consummate  art  and 
absolute  restraint.    Lenora's  speech  ends  thus: 

.  .  .  Speak,  I  pray  thee,  Floribel, 
Speak  to  thy  mother;  do  but  whisper  "  aye"; 
Well,  well,  I  will  not  press  her;  I  am  sure 
She  has  the  welcome  news  of  some  good  fortune, 
And  hoards  the  telling  till  her  father  comes; 
...  Ah!     She  half  laughed.    I've  guessed  it  then; 
Come  tell  me,  I'll  be  secret.    Nay,  if  you  mock  me, 
I  must  be  very  angry  till  you  speak. 
Now  this  is  silly;  some  of  these  young  boys 
Have  dressed  the  cushions  with  her  clothes  in  sport. 
'Tis  very  like  her.    I  could  make  this  image 
Act  all  her  greetings;  she  shall  bow  her  head: 
"  Good-morrow,  mother  ";  and  her  smiling  face 
Falls  on  my  neck. — Oh,  heaven,  'tis  she  indeed! 
I  know  it  all — don't  tell  me. 

The  last  seven  words  are  a  summary  of  anguish,  horror,  and 
despair,  such  as  Webster  himself  might  have  been  proud  to 
write. 

The  Bride's  Tragedy  was  well  received  by  critics;  and  a 
laudatory  notice  of  Beddoes  in  the  Edinburgh,  written  by 
Bryan  Waller  Procter — ^better  known  then  than  now  under 
his  pseudonym  of  Barry  Cornwall — led  to  a  lasting  friend- 
ship between  the  two  poets.  The  connection  had  an  impor- 
tant result,  for  it  was  through  Procter  that  Beddoes  became 
acquainted  with  the  most  intimate  of  all  his  friends — Thomas 
Forbes  Kelsall,  then  a  young  lawyer  at  Southampton.  In  the 
summer  of  1823  Beddoes  stayed  at  Southampton  for  several 
months,  and,  while  ostensibly  studying  for  his  Oxford  de- 
gree, gave  up  most  of  his  time  to  conversations  with  Kelsall 
and  to  dramatic  composition.    It  was  a  culminating  point  in 


246  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

his  life:  one  of  those  moments  which  come,  even  to  the  most 
fortunate,  once  and  once  only — when  youth,  and  hope,  and 
the  high  exuberance  of  genius  combine  with  circumstance 
and  opportunity  to  crown  the  marvellous  hour.  The  spade- 
work  of  The  Bride's  Tragedy  had  been  accomplished;  the 
seed  had  been  sown;  and  now  the  harvest  was  beginning. 
Beddoes,  "  with  the  delicious  sense,"  as  Kelsall  wrote  long 
afterwards,  "  of  the  laurel  freshly  twined  around  his  head," 
poured  out,  in  these  Southampton  evenings,  an  eager  stream 
of  song.  "  His  poetic  composition,"  says  his  friend,  "  was 
then  exceedingly  facile:  more  than  once  or  twice  has  he  taken 
home  with  him  at  night  some  unfinished  act  of  a  drama,  in 
which  the  editor  (Kelsall)  had  found  much  to  admire,  and, 
at  the  next  meeting,  has  produced  a  new  one,  similar  in  de- 
sign, but  filled  with  other  thoughts  and  fancies,  which  his 
teeming  imagination  had  projected,  in  its  sheer  abundance, 
and  not  from  any  feeling,  right  or  fastidious,  of  unworthiness 
in  its  predecessor.  Of  several  of  these  very  striking  frag- 
ments, large  and  grand  in  their  aspect  as  they  each  started 
into  form, 

Like  the  red  outline  of  beginning  Adam, 

.  .  .  the  only  trace  remaining  is  literally  the  impression  thus 
deeply  cut  into  their  one  observer's  mind.  The  fine  verse 
just  quoted  is  the  sole  remnant,  indelibly  stamped  on  the 
editor's  memory,  of  one  of  these  extinct  creations."  Frag- 
ments survive  of  at  least  four  dramas,  projected,  and  brought 
to  various  stages  of  completion,  at  about  this  time.  Beddoes 
was  impatient  of  the  common  restraints;  he  was  dashing  for- 
ward in  the  spirit  of  his  own  advice  to  another  poet: 


:rHE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  247 

Creep  not  nor  climb, 
As  they  who  place  their  topmost  of  sublime 
On  some  peak  of  this  planet,  pitifully. 
Dart  eaglewise  with  open  wings,  and  fly 
Until  you  meet  the  gods! 

Eighteen  months  after  his  Southampton  visit,  Beddoes 
took  his  degree  at  Oxford,  and,  almost  immediately,  made  up 
his  mind  to  a  course  of  action  which  had  the  profoundest 
effect  upon  his  future  life.  He  determined  to  take  up  the 
study  of  medicine;  and  with  that  end  in  view  established 
himself,  in  1825,  at  the  University  of  Gottingen.  It  is  very 
clear,  however,  that  he  had  no  intention  of  giving  up  his 
poetical  work.  He  took  with  him  to  Germany  the  begin- 
nings of  a  new  play — "  a  very  Gothic-styled  tragedy,"  he 
calls  it,  "  for  which  I  have  a  jewel  of  a  name — Death's  Jest- 
book;  of  course,"  he  adds,  "  no  one  will  ever  read  it ";  and 
during  his  four  years  at  Gottingen  he  devoted  most  of  his 
leisure  to  the  completion  of  this  work.  He  was  young;  he 
was  rich;  he  was  interested  in  medical  science;  and  no  doubt 
it  seemed  to  him  that  he  could  well  afford  to  amuse  himself 
for  half-a-dozen  years,  before  he  settled  down  to  the  poetical 
work  which  was  to  be  the  serious  occupation  of  his  life.  But, 
as  time  passed,  he  became  more  and  more  engrossed  in  the 
study  of  medicine,  for  which  he  gradually  discovered  he 
had  not  only  a  taste  but  a  gift;  so  that  at  last  he  came  to 
doubt  whether  it  might  not  be  his  true  vocation  to  be  a 
physician,  and  not  a  poet  after  all.  Engulfed  among  the  stu- 
dents of  Gottingen,  England  and  English  ways  of  life,  and 
even  English  poetry,  became  dim  to  him;  "  dir,  dem  Anbeter 
der  seligen  Gottheiten  der  Musen,  u.s.w.,"  he  wrote  to  Kel- 


248  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

sail,  "  was  Unterheltendes  kann  der  Liebhaber  von  Knochen, 
der  fleissige  Botaniker  und  Phisiolog  mittheilen?  "  In  1830 
he  was  still  hesitating  between  the  two  alternatives.  "  I 
sometimes  wish,"  he  told  the  same  friend,  "  to  devote  myself 
exclusively  to  the  study  of  anatomy  and  physiology  in  sci- 
ence, of  languages,  and  dramatic  poetry  ";  his  pen  had  run 
away  with  him;  and  his  "  exclusive  "  devotion  turned  out  to 
be  a  double  one,  directed  towards  widely  different  ends. 
While  he  was  still  in  this  state  of  mind,  a  new  interest  took 
possession  of  him — an  interest  which  worked  havoc  with  his 
dreams  of  dramatic  authorship  and  scientific  research:  he 
became  involved  in  the  revolutionary  movement  which  was 
at  that  time  beginning  to  agitate  Europe.  The  details  of  his 
adventures  are  unhappily  lost  to  us,  for  we  know  nothing 
more  of  them  than  can  be  learnt  from  a  few  scanty  refer- 
ences in  his  rare  letters  to  Enghsh  friends;  but  it  is  certain 
that  the  part  he  played  was  an  active,  and  even  a  dangerous 
one.  He  was  turned  out  of  Wurzburg  by  "  that  ingenious 
Jackanapes,"  the  King  of  Bavaria;  he  was  an  intimate  friend 
of  Hegetschweiler,  one  of  the  leaders  of  liberalism  in  Switzer- 
land; and  he  was  present  in  Zurich  when  a  body  of  six  thou- 
sand peasants, "  half-unarmed,  and  the  other  half  armed  with 
scythes,  dungforks  and  poles,  entered  the  town  and  over- 
turned the  liberal  government."  In  the  tumult  Heget- 
schweiler was  killed,  and  Beddoes  was  soon  afterwards 
forced  to  fly  the  canton.  During  the  following  years  we 
catch  glimpses  of  him,  flitting  mysteriously  over  Germany 
and  Switzerland,  at  Berlin,  at  Baden,  at  Giessen,  a  strange 
solitary  figure,  with  tangled  hair  and  meerschaum  pipe,  scrib- 
bling lampoons   upon   the  King  of   Prussia,   translating 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  249 

Grainger's  Spinal  Cord  into  German,  and  Schoenlien's  Dis- 
eases of  Europeans  into  English,  exploring  Pilatus  and  the 
Titlis,  evolving  now  and  then  some  ghostly  lyric  or  some 
rabelaisian  tale,  or  brooding  over  the  scenes  of  his  "  Gothic- 
styled  tragedy,"  wondering  if  it  were  worthless  or  inspired, 
and  giving  it — as  had  been  his  wont  for  the  last  twenty  years 
— ^just  one  more  touch  before  he  sent  it  to  the  press.  He  ap- 
peared in  England  once  or  twice,  and  in  1846  made  a  stay  of 
several  months,  visiting  the  Procters  in  London,  and  going 
down  to  Southampton  to  be  with  Kelsall  once  again.  Ec- 
centricity had  grown  on  him;  he  would  shut  himself  for  days 
in  his  bedroom,  smoking  furiously;  he  would  fall  into  fits  of 
long  and  deep  depression.  He  shocked  some  of  his  relatives 
by  arriving  at  their  country  house  astride  a  donkey;  and  he 
amazed  the  Procters  by  starting  out  one  evening  to  set  fire 
to  Drury  Lane  Theatre  with  a  lighted  five-pound  note.  After 
this  last  visit  to  England,  his  history  becomes  even  more 
obscure  than  before.  It  is  known  that  in  1847  he  was  in 
Frankfort,  where  he  lived  for  six  months  in  close  companion- 
ship with  a  young  baker  called  Degen — "  a  nice-looking 
young  man,  nineteen  years  of  age,"  we  are  told,  "  dressed  in 
a  blue  blouse,  fine  in  expression,  and  of  a  natural  dignity  of 
manner  ";  and  that,  in  the  spring  of  the  following  year,  the 
two  friends  went  off  to  Zurich,  where  Beddoes  hired  the  the- 
atre for  a  night  in  order  that  Degen  might  appear  on  the 
stage  in  the  part  of  Hotspur.  At  Basel,  however,  for  some 
unexplained  reason,  the  friends  parted,  and  Beddoes  fell  im- 
mediately into  the  prof oundest  gloom.  "  II  a  ete  miserable," 
said  the  waiter  at  the  Cigogne  Hotel,  where  he  was  staying, 
"  il  a  voulu  se  tuer."   It  was  true.  He  inflicted  a  deep  wound 


250  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

in  his  leg  with  a  razor,  in  the  hope,  ap^rently,  of  bleeding 
to  death.  He  was  taken  to  the  hospital,  where  he  constantly 
tore  off  the  bandages,  until  at  last  it  was  necessary  to  ampu- 
tate the  leg  below  the  knee.  The  operation  was  successful, 
Beddoes  began  to  recover,  and,  in  the  autumn,  Degen  came 
back  to  Basel.  It  seemed  as  if  all  were  going  well;  for  the 
poet,  with  his  books  around  him,  and  the  blue-bloused  Degen 
by  his  bedside,  talked  happily  of  pohtics  and  literature,  and 
of  an  Italian  journey  in  the  spring.  He  walked  out  twice; 
was  he  still  happy?  Who  can  tell?  Was  it  happiness,  or 
misery,  or  what  strange  impulse,  that  drove  him,  on  his  third 
walk,  to  go  to  a  chemist's  shop  in  the  town,  and  to  obtain 
there  a  phial  of  deadly  poison?  On  the  evening  of  that  day 
' — the  26th  of  January,  1849 — Dr.  Ecklin,  his  physician,  was 
hastily  summoned,  to  find  Beddoes  lying  insensible  upon  the 
bed.  He  never  recovered  consciousness,  and  died  that  night. 
Upon  his  breast  was  found  a  pencil  note,  addressed  to  one  of 
his  English  friends.  "  My  dear  Philips,"  it  began,  "  I  am 
food  for  what  I  am  good  for — ^worms."  A  few  testamentary 
wishes  followed.  Kelsall  was  to  have  the  manuscripts;  and 
• — "W.  Beddoes  must  have  a  case  (50  bottles)  of  Cham- 
pagne Moet,  1847  growth,  to  drink  my  death  in  ...  I 
ought  to  have  been,  among  other  things,"  the  gruesome  docu- 
ment concluded,  "  a  good  poet.  Life  was  too  great  a  bore 
on  one  peg,  and  that  a  bad  one.  Buy  for  Dr.  Ecklin  one  of 
Reade's  best  stomach-pumps."  It  was  the  last  of  his  addi- 
tions to  Death's  Jest  Book,  and  the  most  macabre  of  all. 

Kelsall  discharged  his  duties  as  literary  executor  with  ex- 
emplary care.  The  manuscripts  were  fragmentary  and  con- 
fused. There  were  three  distinct  drafts  of  Death's  Jest  Book, 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  251 

each  with  variations  of  its  own;  and  from  these  Kelsall  com- 
piled his  first  edition  of  the  drama,  which  appeared  in  1850. 
In  the  following  year  he  brought  out  the  two  volumes  of 
poetical  works,  which  remained  for  forty  years  the  only 
record  of  the  full  scope  and  power  of  Beddoes'  genius.  They 
contain  reprints  of  The  Bride's  Tragedy  3.1x6.  Death's  Jest 
Book,  together  with  two  unfinished  tragedies,  and  a  great 
number  of  dramatic  fragments  and  lyrics;  and  the  poems  are 
preceded  by  Kelsall's  memoir  of  his  friend.  Of  these  rare 
and  valuable  volumes  the  Muses'  Library  edition  is  an  almost 
exact  reprint,  except  that  it  omits  the  memoir  and  revives 
the  Improvisatore.  Only  one  other  edition  of  Beddoes  exists 
— the  limited  one  brought  out  by  Mr.  Gosse  in  1890,  and 
based  upon  a  fresh  examination  of  the  manuscripts.  Mr. 
Gosse  was  able  to  add  ten  l5n-ics  and  one  dramatic  fragment 
to  those  already  published  by  Kelsall;  he  made  public  for 
the  first  time  the  true  story  of  Beddoes'  suicide,  which  Kel- 
sall had  concealed;  and,  in  1893,  he  followed  up  his  edition 
of  the  poems  by  a  volume  of  Beddoes'  letters.  It  is  clear, 
therefore,  that  there  is  no  one  living  to  whom  lovers  of  Bed- 
does  owe  so  much  as  to  Mr.  Gosse.  He  has  supplied  most 
important  materials  for  the  elucidation  of  the  poet's  history; 
and,  among  the  lyrics  which  he  has  printed  for  the  first  time, 
are  to  be  found  one  of  the  most  perfect  specimens  of  Bed- 
does'  command  of  unearthly  pathos — The  Old  Ghost — 
and  one  of  the  most  singular  examples  of  his  vein  of  gro- 
tesque and  ominous  humour — The  Oviparous  Tailor.  Yet 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  even  Mr.  Gosse's  edition  is  the 
final  one.  There  are  traces  in  Beddoes'  letters  of  unpub- 
lished compositions  which  may  still  come  to  light.    What  has 


252  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

happened,  one  would  like  to  know,  to  The  Ivory  Gate,  that 
"  volume  of  prosaic  poetry  and  poetical  prose,"  which  Bed- 
does  talked  of  publishing  in  1837?  Only  a  few  fine  stanzas 
from  it  have  ever  appeared.  And,  as  Mr.  Gosse  himself  tells 
us,  the  variations  in  Death's  Jest  Book  alone  would  warrant 
the  publication  of  a  variorum  edition  of  that  work — "  if," 
he  wisely  adds,  for  the  proviso  contains  the  gist  of  the  mat- 
ter— "  if  the  interest  in  Beddoes  should  continue  to  grow." 
"  Say  what  you  will,  I  am  convinced  the  man  who  is  to 
awaken  the  drama  must  be  a  bold,  trampling  fellow — no 
creeper  into  worm-holes — no  reviver  even — ^however  good. 
These  reanimations  are  vampire-cold."  The  words  occur  in 
one  of  Beddoes'  letters,  and  they  are  usually  quoted  by 
critics,  on  the  rare  occasions  on  which  his  poetry  is  discussed, 
as  an  instance  of  the  curious  incapacity  of  artists  to  practise 
what  they  preach.  But  the  truth  is  that  Beddoes  was  not  a 
"  creeper  into  worm-holes,"  he  was  not  even  a  "  reviver  "; 
he  was  a  reincarnation.  Everything  that  we  know  of  him 
goes  to  show  that  the  laborious  and  elaborate  effort  of  hter- 
ary  reconstruction  was  quite  alien  to  his  spirit.  We  have 
Kelsall's  evidence  as  to  the  ease  and  abundance  of  his  com- 
position; we  have  the  character  of  the  man,  as  it  shines  forth 
in  his  letters  and  in  the  history  of  his  life — records  of  a 
"  bold,  trampling  fellow,"  if  ever  there  was  one;  and  we  have 
the  evidence  of  his  poetry  itself.  For  the  impress  of  a  fresh 
and  vital  intelligence  is  stamped  unmistakably  upon  all  that 
is  best  in  his  work.  His  mature  blank  verse  is  perfect.  It  is 
not  an  artificial  concoction  galvanized  into  the  semblance  of 
life;  it  simply  lives.  And,  with  Beddoes,  maturity  was  pre- 
eocious,  for  he  obtained  complete  mastery  over  the  most  diffi- 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  253 

cult  and  dangerous  of  metres  at  a  wonderfully  early  age. 
Blank  verse  is  like  the  Djin  in  the  Arabian  Nights;  it  is 
either  the  most  terrible  of  masters,  or  the  most  powerful  of 
slaves.  If  you  have  not  the  magic  secret,  it  will  take  your 
best  thoughts,  your  bravest  imaginations,  and  change  them 
into  toads  and  fishes;  but,  if  the  spell  be  yours,  it  will  turn 
into  a  flying  carpet  and  lift  your  simplest  utterance  into  the 
highest  heaven.  Beddoes  had  mastered  the  "  open  sesame  " 
at  an  age  when  most  poets  are  still  mouthing  ineffectual 
wheats  and  barleys.  In  his  twenty-second  year,  his  thoughts 
filled  and  moved  and  animated  his  blank  verse  as  easily  and 
familiarly  as  a  hand  in  a  glove.  He  wishes  to  compare,  for 
instance,  the  human  mind,  with  its  knowledge  of  the  past,  to 
a  single  eye  receiving  the  light  of  the  stars;  and  the  object  of 
the  comparison  is  to  lay  stress  upon  the  concentration  on  one 
point  of  a  vast  multiplicity  of  objects.  There  could  be  no 
better  exercise  for  a  young  verse-writer  than  to  attempt  his 
own  expression  of  this  idea,  and  then  to  examine  these  lines 
by  Beddoes — lines  where  simplicity  and  splendour  have  been 
woven  together  with  the  ease  of  accomplished  art. 

How  glorious  to  live!     Even  in  one  thought 

The  wisdom  of  past  times  to  fit  together, 

And  from  the  luminous  minds  of  many  men 

Catch  a  reflected  truth;  as,  in  one  eye. 

Light,  from  unnumbered  worlds  and  farthest  planets 

Of  the  star-crowded  xmiverse,  is  gathered 

Into  one  ray. 

The  effect  is,  of  course,  partly  produced  by  the  diction;  but 
the  diction,  fine  as  it  is,  would  be  useless  without  the  phras- 
ing— that  art  by  which  the  two  forces  of  the  metre  and  the 


254  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

sense  are  made  at  once  to  combat,  to  combine  with,  and  to 
heighten  each  other.  It  is,  however,  impossible  to  do  more 
than  touch  upon  this  side — the  technical  side — of  Beddoes' 
genius.  But  it  may  be  noticed  that  in  his  mastery  of  phras- 
ing— as  in  so  much  besides — he  was  a  true  Elizabethan.  The 
great  artists  of  that  age  knew  that  without  phrasing  dra- 
matic verse  was  a  de^d  thing;  and  it  is  only  necessary  to  turn 
from  their  pages  to  those  of  an  eighteenth  century  drama- 
tist— ^Addison,  for  instance — to  understand  how  right  they 
^ere. 

Beddoes'  power  of  creating  scenes  of  intense  dramatic 
force,  which  had  already  begun  to  show  itself  in  The  Bride's 
Tragedy,  reached  its  full  development  in  his  subsequent 
work.  The  opening  act  of  The  Second  Brother — the  most 
nearly  complete  of  his  unfinished  tragedies — is  a  striking  ex- 
ample of  a  powerful  and  original  theme  treated  in  such  a  way 
that,  while  the  whole  of  it  is  steeped  in  imaginative  poetry, 
yet  not  one  ounce  of  its  dramatic  effectiveness  is  lost.  The 
duke's  next  brother,  the  heir  to  the  dukedom  of  Ferrara,  re- 
turns to  the  city,  after  years  of  wandering,  a  miserable  and 
sordid  beggar — to  find  his  younger  brother,  rich,  beautiful, 
and  reckless,  leading  a  life  of  gay  debauchery,  with  the  as- 
surance of  succeeding  to  the  dukedom  when  the  duke  dies. 
The  situation  presents  possibilities  for  just  those  bold  and 
extraordinary  contrasts  which  were  so  dear  to  Beddoes'  heart. 
While  Marcello,  the  second  brother,  is  meditating  over  his 
wretched  fate,  Orazio,  the  third,  comes  upon  the  stage, 
crowned  and  glorious,  attended  by  a  train  of  singing  revel- 
lers, and  with  a  courtesan  upon  either  hand.  "  Wine  in  a 
rubyl  "  he  exclaims,  gazing  into  his  mistress's  eyes: 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  255 

I'll  solemnize  their  beauty  in  a  draught 
Pressed  from  the  summer  of  an  hundred  vines. 

Meanwhile  Marcello  pushes  himself  forward,  and  attempts 
to  salute  his  brother. 

Orazio.    Insolent  beggar! 

Marcello.  Prince!     But  we  must  shake  hands. 

Look  you,  the  round  earth's  like  a  sleeping  serpent, 
Who  drops  her  dusky  tail  upon  her  crown 
Just  here.    Oh,  we  are  like  two  mountain  peaks 
Of  two  close  planets,  catching  in  the  air: 
You,  King  Olympus,  a  great  pile  of  summer, 
Wearing  a  crown  of  gods;  I,  the  vast  top 
Of  the  ghosts'  deadly  world,  naked  and  dark, 
With  nothing  reigning  on  my  desolate  head 
But  an  old  spirit  of  a  murdered  god. 
Placed  within  the  corpse  of  Saturn's  father. 

They  begin  to  dispute,  and  at  last  Marcello  exclaims — 

Aye,  Prince,  you  have  a  brother — 

Orazio.    The  Duke — She'll  scourge  you. 

Marcello.  Nay,  the  second,  sir, 

Who,  like  an  envious  river,  flows  between 
Your  footsteps  and  Ferrara's  throne.  .  .  . 

Orazio.  Stood  he  before  me  there. 

By  you,  in  you,  as  like  as  you're  unlike, 
Straight  as  you're  bowed,  young  as  you  are  old. 
And  many  years  nearer  than  him  to  Death, 
The  falling  brilliancy  of  whose  white  sword 
Your  ancient  locks  so  silvery  reflect, 
I  would  deny,  outswear,  and  overreach. 
And  pass  him  with  contempt,  as  I  do  you. 
Jove!    How  we  waste  the  stars:  set  on,  my  friends. 

And  so  the  revelling  band  pass  onward,  singing  still,  as  they 
vanish  down  the  darkened  street: 


2S6  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Strike,  you  myrtle-crowned  boys, 
Ivied  maidens,  strike  together!  .  .  . 

and  Marcello  is  left  alone: 

I  went  forth 
Joyfully,  as  the  soul  of  one  who  closes 
His  pillowed  eyes  beside  an  unseen  murderer, 
And  like  its  horrible  return  was  mine, 
To  find  the  heart,  wherein  I  breathed  and  beat. 
Cold,  gashed,  and  dead.     Let  me  forget  to  love. 
And  take  a  heart  of  venom:  let  me  make 
A  staircase  of  the  frightened  breasts  of  men, 
And  climb  into  a  lonely  happiness! 
And  thou,  who  only  art  alone  as  I, 
Great  solitary  god  of  that  one  sun, 
I  charge  thee,  by  the  likeness  of  our  state. 
Undo  these  human  veins  that  tie  me  close 
To  other  men,  and  let  your  servant  griefs 
Unmilk  me  of  my  mother,  and  pour  in 
Salt  scorn  and  steaming  hate! 

A  moment  later  he  learns  that  the  duke  has  suddenly  died, 
and  that  the  dukedom  is  his.  The  rest  of  the  play  affords  an 
instance  of  Beddoes'  inability  to  trace  out  a  story,  clearly  and 
forcibly,  to  an  appointed  end.  The  succeeding  acts  are 
crowded  with  beautiful  passages,  with  vivid  situations,  with 
surprising  developments,  but  the  central  plot  vanishes  away 
into  nothing,  like  a  great  river  dissipating  itself  among  a 
thousand  streams.  It  is,  indeed,  clear  enough  that  Beddoes 
was  embarrassed  with  his  riches,  that  his  fertile  mind  con- 
ceived too  easily,  and  that  he  could  never  resist  the  tempta- 
tion of  giving  life  to  his  imaginations,  even  at  the  cost  of 
killing  his  play.  His  conception  of  Orazio,  for  instance,  be- 
gan by  being  that  of  a  young  Bacchus,  as  he  appears  in  the 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  257 

opening  scene.  But  Beddoes  could  not  leave  him  there;  he 
must  have  a  romantic  wife,  whom  he  has  deserted;  and  the 
wife,  once  brought  into  being,  must  have  an  interview  with 
her  husband.  The  interview  is  an  exquisitely  beautiful  one, 
but  it  shatters  Orazio's  character,  for,  in  the  course  of  it,  he 
falls  desperately  in  love  with  his  wife;  and  meanwhile  the 
wife  herself  has  become  so  important  and  interesting  a  figure 
that  she  must  be  given  a  father,  who  in  his  turn  becomes  the 
central  character  in  more  than  one  exciting  scene.  But,  by 
this  time,  what  has  happened  to  the  second  brother?  It  is 
easy  to  believe  that  Beddoes  was  always  ready  to  begin  a 
new  play  rather  than  finish  an  old  one.  But  it  is  not  so  cer- 
tain that  his  method  was  quite  as  inexcusable  as  his  critics 
assert.  To  the  reader,  doubtless,  his  faulty  construction  is 
glaring  enough ;  but  Beddoes  wrote  his  plays  to  be  acted,  as 
a  passage  in  one  of  his  letters  very  clearly  shows.  "  You  are, 
I  think,"  he  writes  to  Kelsall,  "  disinclined  to  the  stage:  now 
I  confess  that  I  think  this  is  the  highest  aim  of  the  dramatist, 
and  should  be  very  desirous  to  get  on  it.  To  look  down  on 
it  is  a  piece  of  impertinence,  as  long  as  one  chooses  to  write 
in  the  form  of  a  play,  and  is  generally  the  result  of  one's  own 
inability  to  produce  anything  striking  and  affecting  in  that 
way."  And  it  is  precisely  upon  the  stage  that  such  faults  of 
construction  as  those  which  disfigure  Beddoes'  tragedies  mat- 
ter least.  An  audience,  whose  attention  is  held  and  delighted 
by  a  succession  of  striking  incidents  clothed  in  splendid 
speech,  neither  cares  nor  knows  whether  the  effect  of  the 
whole,  as  a  whole,  is  worthy  of  the  separate  parts.  It  would 
be  foolish,  in  the  present  melancholy  condition  of  the  art  of 
dramatic  declamation,  to  wish  for  the  public  performance  of 


258  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Death's  Jest  Book;  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  hope  that  the 
time  may  come  when  an  adequate  representation  of  that 
strange  and  great  work  may  be  something  more  than  "  a  pos- 
sibility more  thin  than  air."  Then,  and  then  only,  shall  we 
be  able  to  take  the  true  measure  of  Beddoes'  genius. 

Perhaps,  however,  the  ordinary  reader  finds  Beddoes'  lack 
of  construction  a  less  distasteful  quality  than  his  disregard 
of  the  common  realities  of  existence.  Not  only  is  the  sub- 
ject-matter of  the  greater  part  of  his  poetry  remote  and  dubi- 
ous; his  very  characters  themselves  seem  to  be  infected  by 
their  creator's  delight  in  the  mysterious,  the  strange,  and  the 
unreal.  They  have  no  healthy  activity;  or,  if  they  have, 
they  invariably  lose  it  in  the  second  act;  in  the  end,  they  are 
all  hypochondriac  philosophers,  puzzling  over  eternity  and 
dissecting  the  attributes  of  Death.  The  central  idea  of 
Death's  Jest  Book — the  resurrection  of  a  ghost — fails  to  be 
truly  effective,  because  it  is  difficult  to  see  any  clear  distinc- 
tion between  the  phantom  and  the  rest  of  the  characters. 
The  duke,  saved  from  death  by  the  timely  arrival  of  Wolf- 
ram, exclaims  "  Blest  hour!  "  and  then,  in  a  moment,  begins 
to  ponder,  and  agonise,  and  dream: 

And  yet  how  palely,  with  what  faded  lips 
Do  we  salute  this  unhoped  change  of  fortune! 
Thou  art  so  silent,  lady;  and  I  utter 
Shadows  of  words,  like  to  an  ancient  ghost, 
Arisen  out  of  hoary  centuries 
Where  none  can  speak  his  language. 

Orazio,  in  his  brilliant  palace^  is  overcome  with  the  same 
feelings: 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  259 

Methinks,  these  fellows,  with  their  ready  jests, 
Are  like  to  tedious  bells,  that  ring  alike 
Marriage  or  death. 

And  his  description  of  his  own  revels  applies  no  less  to  the 
whole  atmosphere  of  Beddoes'  tragedies: 

Voices  were  heard,  most  loud,  which  no  man  owned: 
There  were  more  shadows  too  than  there  were  men; 
And  all  the  air  more  dark  and  thick  than  night 
Was  heavy,  as  'twere  made  of  something  more 
Than  living  breaths. 

It  would  be  vain  to  look,  among  such  spectral  imaginings 
as  these,  for  guidance  in  practical  affairs,  or  for  illuminating 
views  on  men  and  things,  or  for  a  philosophy,  or,  in  short, 
for  anything  which  may  be  called  a  "  criticism  of  life."  If  a 
poet  must  be  a  critic  of  life,  Beddoes  was  certainly  no  poet. 
He  belongs  to  the  class  of  writers  of  which,  in  English  litera- 
ture, Spenser,  Keats,  and  Milton  are  the  dominant  figures — 
the  writers  who  are  great  merely  because  of  their  art.  Sir 
James  Stephen  was  only  telling  the  truth  when  he  remarked 
that  Milton  might  have  put  all  that  he  had  to  say  in  Paradise 
Lost  into  a  prose  pamphlet  of  two  or  three  pages.  But  who 
cares  about  what  Milton  had  to  say?  It  is  his  way  of  saying 
it  that  matters;  it  is  his  expression.  Take  away  the  expres- 
sion from  the  Satires  of  Pope,  or  from  the  Excursion, 
and,  though  you  will  destroy  the  poems,  you  will  leave 
behind  a  great  mass  of  thought.  Take  away  the  expres- 
sion from  Hyperion,  and  you  will  leave  nothing  at  all.  To 
ask  which  is  the  better  of  the  two  styles  is  like  asking 
whether  a  peach  is  better  than  a  rose,  because,  both  being 
beautiful,  you  can  eat  the  one  and  not  the  other.    At  any 


26o  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

rate,  Beddoes  is  among  the  roses:  it  is  in  his  expression 
that  his  greatness  lies.  His  verse  is  an  instrument  of  many 
modulations,  of  exquisite  delicacy,  of  strange  suggestive- 
ness,  of  amazing  power.  Playing  on  it,  he  can  give  utter- 
ance to  the  subtlest  visions,  such  as  this: 

Just  now  a  beam  of  joy  hung  on  his  eyelash; 
But,  as  I  looked,  it  sunk  into  his  eye. 
Like  a  bruised  worm  writhing  its  form  of  rings 
Into  a  darkening  hole. 

Or  to  the  most  marvellous  of  vague  and  vast  conceptions, 

such  as  this: 

I  begin  to  hear 
Strange  but  sweet  sounds,  and  the  loud  rocky  dashing 
Of  waves,  where  time  into  Eternity 
Falls  over  ruined  worlds. 

Or  he  can  evoke  sensations  of  pure  loveliness,  such  as  these: 

So  fair  a  creature!  of  such  charms  compact 

As  nature  stints  elsewhere:  which  you  may  find 

Under  the  tender  eyelid  of  a  serpent, 

Or  in  the  gurge  of  a  kiss-coloured  rose. 

By  drops  and  sparks:  but  when  she  moves,  you  see, 

Like  water  from  a  crystal  overfilled. 

Fresh  beauty  tremble  out  of  her  and  lave 

Her  fair  sides  to  the  ground. 

Or  he  can  put  into  a  single  line  all  the  long  memories  of 

adoration: 

My  love  was  much; 
My  life  but  an  inhabitant  of  his. 

Or  he  can  pass  in  a  moment  from  tiny  sweetness  to  colossal 
turmoil: 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  261 

I  should  not  say 
How  thou  art  like  the  daisy  in  Noah's  meadow, 
On  which  the  foremost  drop  of  rain  fell  warm 
And  soft  at  evening:  so  the  little  flower 
Wrapped  up  its  leaves,  and  shut  the  treacherous  water 
Close  to  the  golden  welcome  of  its  breast, 
Delighting  in  the  touch  of  that  which  led 
The  shower  of  oceans,  in  whose  billowy  drops 
Tritons  and  lions  of  the  sea  were  warring, 
And  sometimes  ships  on  fire  sunk  in  the  blood 
Of  their  own  inmates;  others  were  of  ice. 
And  some  had  islands  rooted  in  their  waves, 
Beasts  on  their  rocks,  and  forest-powdering  winds, 
And  showers  tumbling  on  their  tumbling  self. 
And  every  sea  of  every  ruined  star 
Was  but  a  drop  in  the  world-melting  flood. 

He  can  express  alike  the  beautiful  tenderness  of  love,  and 
the  hectic,  dizzy,  and  appalling  frenzy  of  extreme  rage: — 

.  .  .  What  shall  I  do?     I  speak  all  wrong, 

And  lose  a  soul-full  of  delicious  thought 

By  talking.     Hush!     Let's  drink  each  other  up 

By  silent  eyes.    Who  lives,  but  thou  and  I, 

My  heavenly  wife?  .  .  . 

I'll  watch  thee  thus,  till  I  can  tell  a  second 

By  thy  cheek's  change. 

In  that,  one  can  almost  feel  the  kisses;  and,  in  this,  one 
can  almost  hear  the  gnashing  of  the  teeth.  "Never!  "  ex- 
claims the  duke  to  his  son  Torrismond: 

There  lies  no  grain  of  sand  between 
My  loved  and  my  detested!     Wing  thee  hence. 
Or  thou  dost  stand  to-morrow  on  a  cobweb 
Spun  o'er  the  well  of  clotted  Acheron, 
Whose  hydrophobic  entrails  stream  with  fire  I 


262  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

And  may  this  intervening  earth  be  snow, 
And  my  step  burn  like  the  mid  coal  of  iEtna, 
Plunging  me,  through  it  all,  into  the  core, 
Where  in  their  graves  the  dead  are  shut  like  seeds, 
If  I  do  not — O,  but  he  is  my  son! 

Is  not  that  tremendous?  But,  to  find  Beddoes  in  his  most 
characteristic  mood,  one  must  watch  him  weaving  his  mys- 
terious imagination  upon  the  woof  of  mortality.  One  must 
wander  with  him  through  the  pages  of  Death's  Jest  Book, 
one  must  grow  accustomed  to  the  dissolution  of  reality,  and 
the  opening  of  the  nettled  lips  of  graves;  one  must  learn 
that  "  the  dead  are  most  and  merriest,"  one  must  ask — 
"  Are  the  ghosts  eavesdropping?  " — one  must  realise  that 
"  murder  is  full  of  holes."  Among  the  ruins  of  his  Gothic 
cathedral,  on  whose  cloister  walls  the  Dance  of  Death  is 
painted,  one  may  speculate  at  ease  over  the  fragility  of 
existence,  and,  within  sound  of  that  dark  ocean. 

Whose  tumultuous  waves 
Are  heaped,  contending  ghosts, 

one  may  understand  how  it  is  that 

Death  is  mightier,  stronger,  and  more  faithful 
To  man  than  Life. 

Lingering  there,  one  may  watch  the  Deaths  come  down 
from  their  cloister,  and  dance  and  sing  amid  the  moonlight; 
one  may  laugh  over  the  grotesque  contortions  of  skeletons; 
one  may  crack  jokes  upon  corruption;  one  may  sit  down 
with  phantoms,  and  drink  to  the  health  of  Death. 

In  private  intercourse  Beddoes  was  the  least  morbid  of 
human  beings.     His  mind  was  like  one  of  those  Gothic 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  263 

cathedrals  of  which  he  was  so  fond — mysterious  within, 
and  filled  with  a  light  at  once  richer  and  less  real  than  the 
light  of  day;  on  the  outside,  firm,  and  towering,  and  imme- 
diately impressive;  and  embellished,  both  inside  and  out, 
with  grinning  gargoyles.  His  conversation,  Kelsall  tells  us, 
was  full  of  humour  and  vitality,  and  untouched  by  any  trace 
of  egoism  or  affectation.  He  loved  discussion,  plunging  into 
it  with  fire,  and  carrying  it  onward  with  high  dexterity  and 
good-humoured  force.  His  letters  are  excellent;  simple, 
spirited,  spicy,  and  as  original  as  his  verse;  flavoured  with 
that  vein  of  rattling  open-air  humour  which  had  produced 
his  school-boy  novel  in  the  style  of  Fielding.  He  was  a 
man  whom  it  would  have  been  a  rare  delight  to  know.  His 
character,  so  eminently  English,  compact  of  courage,  of 
originality,  of  imagination,  and  with  something  coarse  m 
it  as  well,  puts  one  in  mind  of  Hamlet:  not  the  melodramatic 
sentimentalist  of  the  stage;  but  the  real  Hamlet,  Horatio's 
Hamlet,  who  called  his  father's  ghost  old  truepenny,  who 
forged  his  uncle's  signature,  who  fought  Laertes,  and  ranted 
in  a  grave,  and  lugged  the  guts  into  the  neighbour  room. 
His  tragedy,  like  Hamlet's,  was  the  tragedy  of  an  over- 
powerful  will — a  will  so  strong  as  to  recoil  upon  itself,  and 
fall  into  indecision.  It  is  easy  for  a  weak  man  to  be  decided 
— there  is  so  much  to  make  him  so;  but  a  strong  man,  who 
can  do  anything,  sometimes  leaves  everything  undone. 
Fortunately  Beddoes,  though  he  did  far  less  than  he  might 
have  done,  possessed  so  rich  a  genius  that  what  he  did, 
though  small  in  quantity,  is  in  quality  beyond  price.  "  I 
might  have  been,  among  other  things,  a  good  poet,"  were 
his  last  words.    "Among  other  things  I  "  aye,  there's  the 


264  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

rub.  But,  in  spite  of  his  own  "  might  have  been,"  a  good 
poet  he  was.  Perhaps  for  him,  after  all,  there  was  very 
little  to  regret;  his  life  was  full  of  high  nobility;  and  what 
other  way  of  death  would  have  befitted  the  poet  of  death? 
There  is  a  thought  constantly  recurring  throughout  his  writ- 
ings— ^in  his  childish  as  in  his  most  mature  work — the 
thought  of  the  beauty  and  the  supernal  happiness  of  soft 
and  quiet  death.  He  had  visions  of  "  rosily  dying,"  of 
"  turning  to  daisies  gently  in  the  grave,"  of  a  "  pink  reclin- 
ing death,"  of  death  coming  like  a  summer  cloud  over  the 
soul.  "Let  her  deathly  life  pass  into  death,"  says  one  of 
his  earliest  characters,  "  like  music  on  the  night  wind," 
And,  in  Death* s  Jest  Book,  Sibylla  has  the  same  thoughts: 

O  Death!  I  am  thy  friend, 
I  struggle  not  with  thee,  I  love  thy  state: 
Thou  canst  be  sweet  and  gentle,  be  so  now; 
And  let  me  pass  praying  away  into  thee, 
As  twilight  still  does  into  starry  night. 

Did  his  mind,  obsessed  and  overwhelmed  by  images  of  death, 
crave  at  last  for  the  one  thing  stranger  than  all  these — 
the  experience  of  it?  It  is  easy  to  believe  so,  and  that,  ill, 
wretched,  and  abandoned  by  Degen  at  the  miserable  Cigogne 
Hotel,  he  should  seek  relief  in  the  gradual  dissolution  which 
attends  upon  loss  of  blood.  And  then,  when  he  had  recov- 
ered, when  he  was  almost  happy  once  again,  the  old  thoughts, 
perhaps,  came  crowding  back  upon  him — thoughts  of  the 
futility  of  life,  and  the  supremacy  of  death  and  the  mystical 
whirlpool  of  the  unknown,  and  the  long  quietude  of  the 
grave.    In  the  end,  Death  had  grown  to  be  something  more 


THE  LAST  ELIZABETHAN  265 

than  Death  to  him — it  was,  mysteriously  and  transcenden- 
tally,  Love  as  well. 

Death's  darts  are  sometimes  Love's.    So  Nature  tells, 
When  laughing  waters  close  o'er  drowning  man; 
When  in  flowers'  honied  corners  poison  dwells; 
When  Beauty  dies:  and  the  unwearied  ken 
Of  those  who  seek  a  cure  for  long  despair 
Will  learn  .  .  . 

What  learning  was  it  that  rewarded  him?     What  ghostly 
knowledge  of  eternal  love? 

If  there  are  ghosts  to  raise, 

What  shall  I  call. 
Out  of  hell's  murky  haze, 
Heaven's  blue  pall? 
— Raise  my  loved  long-lost  boy 
To  lead  me  to  his  joy. — 
There  are  no  ghosts  to  raise; 
Out  of  death  lead  nc  ways; 
Vain  is  the  call. 

— Know'st  thou  not  ghosts  to  sue? 

No  love  thou  hast. 
Else  lie,  as  I  will  do. 
And  breathe  thy  last. 
So  out  of  Life's  fresh  crown 
Fall  like  a  rose-leaf  down. 
Thus  are  the  ghosts  to  woo; 
Thus  are  all  dreams  made  true. 
Ever  to  last! 

1907. 


HENRI  BEYLE 


HENRI  BEYLE 


HENRI  BEYLE 

In  the  whole  of  French  literature  it  would  be  difficult  to 
point  to  a  figure  at  once  so  important,  so  remarkable,  and 
so_  little  known  to  English  readers  as  Henri  Beyle.  Most 
of  us  are,  no  doubt,  fairly  familiar  with  his  pseudonym  of 
"  Stendhal ";  some  of  us  have  read  Le  Rouge  et  Le  Noir 
and  La  Chartreuse  de  Parme;  but  how  many  of  us  have 
any  further  knowledge  of  a  man  whose  works  are  at  the 
present  moment  appearing  in  Paris  in  all  the  pomp  of  an 
elaborate  and  complete  edition,  every  scrap  of  whose  man- 
uscripts is  being  collected  and  deciphered  with  enthusiastic 
care,  and  in  honour  of  whose  genius  the  literary  periodicals 
of  the  hour  are  filling  entire  numbers  with  exegesis  and 
appreciation?  The  eminent  critic,  M.  Andre  Gide,  when 
asked  lately  to  name  the  novel  which  stands  in  his  opinion 
first  among  the  novels  of  France,  declared  that  since,  with- 
out a  doubt,  the  place  belongs  to  one  or  other  of  the  novels 
of  Stendhal,  his  only  difficulty  was  in  making  his  choice 
among  these;  and  he  finally  decided  upon  La  Chartreuse  de 
Parme.  According  to  this  high  authority,  Henri  Beyle  was 
indisputably  the  creator  of  the  greatest  work  of  fiction  in 
the  French  language,  yet  on  this  side  of  the  Channel  we  have 
hardly  more  than  heard  of  him!  Nor  is  it  merely  as  a 
writer  that  Beyle  is  admired  in  France.  As  a  man,  he  seems 
to  have  come  in,  sixty  or  seventy  years  after  his  death,  for 
a  singular  devotion.     There  are  "  Beylistes,"  or  "  Stend- 

269 


270  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

haliens,"  who  dwell  with  rapture  upon  every  detail  of  the 
master's  private  life,  who  extend  with  pious  care  the  long 
catalogue  of  his  amorous  adventures,  who  discuss  the  shades 
of  his  character  with  the  warmth  of  personal  friendship, 
and  register  his  opinions  with  a  zeal  which  is  hardly  less 
than  sectarian.  But  indeed  it  is  precisely  in  these  extremes 
of  his  French  devotees  that  we  shall  find  a  clue  to  the  ex- 
planation of  our  own  indifference.  Beyle's  mind  contained, 
in  a  highly  exaggerated  form,  most  of  the  peculiarly  dis- 
tinctive elements  of  the  French  character.  This  does  not 
mean  that  he  was  a  typical  Frenchman;  far  from  it.  He 
did  not,  like  Voltaire  or  Hugo,  strike  a  note  to  which  the 
whole  national  genius  vibrated  in  response.  He  has  never 
been,  it  is  unlikely  that  he  ever  will  be,  a  popular  writer. 
His  literary  reputation  in  France  has  been  confined,  until 
perhaps  quite  lately,  to  a  small  distinguished  circle.  "  On 
me  lira,"  he  was  fond  of  saying,  "  vers  1880  ";  and  the 
"  Beylistes  "  point  to  the  remark  in  triumph  as  one  further 
proof  of  the  almost  divine  prescience  of  the  great  man.  But 
in  truth  Beyle  was  always  read  by  the  Slite  of  French  critics 
and  writers — "  the  happy  few,"  as  he  used  to  call  them ; 
and  among  these  he  has  never  been  without  enthusiastic 
admirers.  During  his  lifetime  Balzac,  in  an  enormous 
eulogy  of  La  Chartreuse  de  Parme,  paid  him  one  of  the 
most  magnificent  compliments  ever  received  by  a  man  of 
letters  from  a  fellow  craftsman.  In  the  next  generation 
Taine  declared  himself  his  disciple;  a  little  later — "vers 
1880,"  in  fact— we  find  Zola  describing  him  as  "  notre  pere 
k  tous,"  and  M.  Bourget  followed  with  elaborate  incense. 
To-day  we  have  writers  of  such  different  tendencies  as 


HENRI  BEYLE  271 

M.  Bar  res  and  M.  Gide  acclaiming  him  as  a  supreme  master, 
and  the  fashionable  idolatry  of  the  "  Beylistes."  Yet,  at 
the  same  time,  running  parallel  to  this  stream  of  homage, 
it  is  easy  to  trace  a  line  of  opinion  of  a  totally  different  kind. 
It  is  the  opinion  of  the  more  solid,  the  more  middle-class 
elements  of  French  life.  Thus  Sainte-Beuve,  in  two  charac- 
teristic "  Lundis,"  poured  a  great  deal  of  very  tepid  water 
upon  Balzac's  flaming  panegyric.  Then  Flaubert — "  vers 
1880,"  too — confessed  that  he  could  see  very  little  in  Stend- 
hal. And,  only  a  few  years  ago,  M.  Chuquet,  of  the  Insti- 
tute, took  the  trouble  to  compose  a  thick  book  in  which  he 
has  collected  with  scrupulous  detail  all  the  known  facts 
concerning  the  life  and  writings  of  a  man  whom  he  forth- 
with proceeds  to  damn  through  five  hundred  pages  of  faint 
praise.  These  discrepancies  are  curious:  how  can  we  ac- 
count for  such  odd  differences  of  taste?  How  are  we  to 
reconcile  the  admiration  of  Balzac  with  the  dislike  of 
Flaubert,  the  raptures  of  M.  Bourget  and  M.  Barres  with 
the  sniffs  of  Sainte-Beuve  and  M.  Chuquet  of  the  Institute? 
The  explanation  seems  to  be  that  Beyle  occupies  a  position 
in  France  analogous  to  that  of  Shelley  in  England.  Shelley 
is  not  a  national  hero,  not  because  he  lacked  the  distinctive 
qualities  of  an  Englishman,  but  for  the  opposite  reason — 
because  he  possessed  so  many  of  them  in  an  extreme  degree. 
The  idealism,  the  daring,  the  imagination,  and  the  unconven- 
tionality  which  give  Shakespeare,  Nelson,  and  Dr.  Johnson 
their  place  in  our  pantheon — all  these  were  Shelley's,  but 
they  were  his  in  too  undiluted  and  intense  a  form,  with  the 
result  that,  while  he  will  never  fail  of  worshippers  among 
us,  there  will  also  always  be  Englishmen  unable  to  appreciate 


272  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

him  at  all.  Such,  mutatis  mutandis — and  in  this  case  the 
proviso  is  a  very  large  one — is  the  position  of  Beyle  in 
France.  After  all,  when  Bunthorne  asked  for  a  not-too- 
French  French  bean  he  showed  more  commonsense  than  he 
intended.  Beyle  is  a  too-French  French  writer — too  French 
even  for  the  bulk  of  his  own  compatriots;  and  so  for  us 
it  is  only  natural  that  he  should  be  a  little  difficult.  Yet 
this  very  fact  is  in  itself  no  bad  reason  for  giving  him  some 
attention.  An  understanding  of  this  very  Gallic  individual 
might  give  us  a  new  insight  into  the  whole  strange  race. 
And  besides,  the  curious  creature  is  worth  looking  at  for 
his  own  sake  too. 

But,  when  one  tries  to  catch  him  and  pin  him  down  on 
the  dissecting-table,  he  turns  out  to  be  exasperatingly  elusive. 
Even  his  most  fervent  admirers  cannot  agree  among  them- 
selves as  to  the  true  nature  of  his  achievements.  Balzac 
thought  of  him  as  an  artist,  Taine  was  captivated  by  his 
conception  of  history,  M.  Bourget  adores  him  as  a  psycholo- 
gist, M.  Barres  lays  stress  upon  his  "  sentiment  d'honneur," 
and  the  "  Beylistes  "  see  in  him  the  embodiment  of  modern- 
ity. Certainly  very  few  writers  have  had  the  good  fortune 
to  appeal  at  once  so  constantly  and  in  so  varied  a  manner 
to  succeeding  generations  as  Henri  Beyle.  The  circum- 
stances of  his  life  no  doubt  in  part  account  for  the  com- 
plexity of  his  genius.  He  was  born  in  1783,  when  the  ancien 
regime  was  still  in  full  swing;  his  early  manhood  was  spent 
in  the  turmoil  of  the  Napoleonic  wars;  he  lived  to  see  the 
Bourbon  reaction,  the  Romantic  revival,  the  revolution  of 
1830,  and  the  establishment  of  Louis  Philippe;  and  when 
he  died,  at  the  age  of  sixty,  the  nineteenth  century  was 


HENRI  BEYLE  273 

nearly  half-way  through.  Thus  his  life  exactly  spans  the 
interval  between  the  old  world  and  the  new.  His  family, 
which  belonged  to  the  magistracy  of  Grenoble,  preserved  the 
living  tradition  of  the  eighteenth  century.  His  grandfather 
was  a  polite,  amiable,  periwigged  sceptic  after  the  manner 
of  Fontenelle,  who  always  spoke  of  "  M.  de  Voltaire  "  with 
a  smile  "  melange  de  respect  et  d'affection  ";  and  when  the 
Terror  came,  two  representatives  of  the  people  were  sent 
down  to  Grenoble,  with  the  result  that  Beyle's  father  was 
pronounced  (with  a  hundred  and  fifty  others)  "  notoirement 
suspect "  of  disaffection  to  the  Republic,  and  confined  to 
his  house.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  Beyle  arrived  in  Paris,  just 
after  the  coup  d'etat  of  the  i8th  Brumaire  had  made 
Bonaparte  First  Consul,  and  he  immediately  came  under 
the  influence  of  his  cousin  Daru,  that  extraordinary  man 
to  whose  terrific  energies  was  due  the  organisation  of  Na- 
poleon's greatest  armies,  and  whose  leisure  moments — for 
apparently  he  had  leisure  moments — ^were  devoted  to  the 
composition  of  idylls  in  the  style  of  Tibullus  and  to  an  enor- 
mous correspondence  on  hterary  topics  with  the  poetasters 
of  the  day.  It  was  as  a  subordinate  to  this  remarkable 
personage  that  Beyle  spent  nearly  the  whole  of  the  next 
fifteen  years  of  his  life — ^in  Paris,  in  Italy,  in  Germany,  in 
Russia — ^wherever  the  whirling  tempest  of  the  Napoleonic 
policy  might  happen  to  carry  him.  His  actual  military  ex- 
perience was  considerably  slighter  than  what,  in  after  years, 
he  liked  to  give  his  friends  to  understand  it  had  been.  For 
hardly  more  than  a  year,  during  the  Italian  campaign,  he 
was  in  the  army  as  a  lieutenant  of  dragoons:  the  rest  of  his 
public  service  was  spent  in  the  commissariat  department. 


274  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

The  descriptions  which  he  afterwards  delighted  to  give  of 
his  adventures  at  Marengo,  at  Jena,  at  Wagram,  or  at  the 
crossing  of  the  Niemen  have  been  shown  by  M.  Chuquet's 
unkind  researches  to  have  been  imaginary.  Beyle  was  pres- 
ent at  only  one  great  battle — Bautzen.  "  Nous  voyons  fort 
bien,"  he  wrote  in  his  journal  on  the  following  day,  "  de 
midi  a  trois  heures,  tout  ce  qu'on  pent  voir  d'une  bataille, 
c'est  a  dire  rien."  He  was,  however,  at  Moscow  in  1812, 
and  he  accompanied  the  army  through  the  horrors  of  the 
retreat.  When  the  conflagration  had  broken  out  in  the  city 
he  had  abstracted  from  one  of  the  deserted  palaces  a  finely 
bound  copy  of  the  Facities  of  Voltaire;  the  book  helped 
to  divert  his  mind  as  he  lay  crouched  by  the  camp-fire 
through  the  terrible  nights  that  followed;  but,  as  his  com- 
panions showed  their  disapproval  of  any  one  who  could 
smile  over  Akakia  and  Pompignan  in  such  a  situation,  one 
day  he  left  the  red-morocco  volume  behind  him  in  the  snow. 
The  fall  of  Napoleon  threw  Beyle  out  of  employment, 
and  the  period  of  his  literary  activity  began.  His  books 
were  not  successful;  his  fortune  gradually  dwindled;  and 
he  drifted  in  Paris  and  Italy,  and  even  in  England,  more 
and  more  disconsolately,  with  thoughts  of  suicide  sometimes 
in  his  head.  But  in  1830  the  tide  of  his  fortunes  turned. 
The  revolution  of  July,  by  putting  his  friends  into  power, 
brought  him  a  competence  in  the  shape  of  an  Italian  con- 
sulate; and  in  the  same  year  he  gained  for  the  first  time 
some  celebrity  by  the  publication  of  Le  Rouge  et  Le  Noir. 
The  rest  of  his  life  was  spent  in  the  easy  discharge  of  his 
official  duties  at  Civita  Vecchia,  alternating  with  periods 
of  leave — one  of  them  lasted  for  three  years — spent  in  Paris 


HENRI  BEYLE  275 

among  his  friends,  of  whom  the  most  distinguished  was 
Prosper  Merimee.  In  1839  appeared  his  last  published 
work — La  Chartreuse  de  Parme;  and  three  years  later  he 
died  suddenly  in  Paris.  His  epitaph,  composed  by  himself 
with  the  utmost  care,  was  as  follows: 

QUI  GIACE 

ARRIGO   BEYLE   MILANESE 

VISSE,  SCRISSE,  AMO. 

The  words,  read  rightly,  indicate  many  things — ^his  adora- 
tion of  Italy  and  Milan,  his  eccentricity,  his  scorn  of  the 
conventions  of  society  and  the  limits  of  nationality,  his 
adventurous  life,  his  devotion  to  literature,  and,  lastly,  the 
fact  that,  through  all  the  varieties  of  his  experience — in 
the  earliest  years  of  his  childhood,  in  his  agitated  manhood, 
in  his  calm  old  age — there  had  never  been  a  moment  when 
he  was  not  in  love. 

Beyle's  work  falls  into  two  distinct  groups — the  first  con- 
sisting of  his  novels,  and  the  second  of  his  miscellaneous 
writings,  which  include  several  biographies,  a  dissertation 
on  Love,  some  books  of  criticism  and  travel,  his  letters  and 
various  autobiographical  fragments.  The  bulk  of  the  latter 
group  is  large;  much  of  it  has  only  lately  seen  the  light; 
and  more  of  it,  at  present  in  MS.  at  the  Library  of  Grenoble, 
is  promised  us  by  the  indefatigable  editors  of  the  new  com- 
plete edition  which  is  now  appearing  in  Paris.  The  interest 
of  this  portion  of  Beyle's  writings  is  almost  entirely  per- 
sonal: that  of  his  novels  is  mainly  artistic.  It  was  as  a 
novelist  that  Beyle  first  gained  his  celebrity,  and  it  is  still 


276  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

as  a  novelist — or  rather  as  the  author  of  Le  Rouge  et  Le 
Noir  and  La  Chartreuse  de  Parme  (for  an  earlier  work, 
Armance,  some  short  stories,  and  some  later  posthumous 
fragments  may  be  left  out  of  account)  that  he  is  most  widely 
known  to-day.  These  two  remarkable  works  lose  none  of 
their  significance  if  we  consider  the  time  at  which  they  were 
composed.  It  was  in  the  full  flood  of  the  Romantic  revival, 
that  marvellous  hour  in  the  history  of  French  literature 
when  the  tyranny  of  two  centuries  was  shattered  for  ever, 
and  a  boundless  wealth  of  inspirations,  possibilities,  and 
beauties  before  undreamt-of  suddenly  burst  upon  the  view. 
It  was  the  hour  of  Hugo,  Vigny,  Musset,  Gautier,  Balzac, 
with  their  new  sonorities  and  golden  cadences,  their  new 
lyric  passion  and  dramatic  stress,  their  new  virtuosities,  their 
new  impulse  towards  the  strange  and  the  magnificent,  their 
new  desire  for  diversity  and  the  manifold  comprehension 
of  life.  But,  if  we  turn  to  the  contemporaneous  pages  of 
Stendhal,  what  do  we  find?  We  find  a  succession  of  colour- 
less, unemphatic  sentences;  we  find  cold  reasoning  and  ex- 
act narrative;  we  find  polite  irony  and  dry  wit.  The  spirit 
of  the  eighteenth  century  is  everywhere;  and  if  the  old 
gentleman  with  the  perruque  and  the  "  M.  de  Voltaire  " 
could  have  taken  a  glance  at  his  grandson's  novels,  he  would 
have  rapped  his  snuff-box  and  approved.  It  is  true  that 
Beyle  joined  the  ranks  of  the  Romantics  for  a  moment  with 
a  brochure  attacking  Racine  at  the  expense  of  Shakespeare; 
but  this  was  merely  one  of  those  contradictory  changes  of 
front  which  were  inherent  in  his  nature;  and  in  reality  the 
whole  Romantic  movement  meant  nothing  to  him.  There 
is  a  story  of  a  meeting  in  the  house  of  a  common  friend 


HENRI  BEYLE  277 

between  him  and  Hugo,  in  which  the  two  men  faced  each 
other  like  a  couple  of  cats  with  their  backs  up  and  their 
whiskers  bristling.  No  wonder  1  But  Beyle's  true  attitude 
towards  his  great  contemporaries  was  hardly  even  one  of 
hostility:  he  simply  could  not  open  their  books.  As  for 
Chateaubriand,  the  god  of  their  idolatry,  he  loathed  him 
like  poison.  He  used  to  describe  how,  in  his  youth,  he 
had  been  on  the  point  of  fighting  a  duel  with  an  officer 
who  had  ventured  to  maintain  that  a  phrase  in  Atala — 
"  la  cime  indeterminee  des  forets  " — was  not  intolerable. 
Probably  he  was  romancing  (M.  Chuquet  says  so);  but 
at  any  rate  the  story  sums  up  S3anbolically  Beyle's  attitude 
towards  his  art.  To  him  the  whole  apparatus  of  "  fine 
writing  " — the  emphatic  phrase,  the  picturesque  epithet,  the 
rounded  rhythm — was  anathema.  The  charm  that  such  or- 
naments might  bring  was  in  reality  only  a  cloak  for  loose 
thinking  and  feeble  observation.  Even  the  style  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  not  quite  his  ideal;  it  was  too  ele- 
gant; there  was  an  artificial  neatness  about  the  form  which 
imposed  itself  upon  the  substance,  and  degraded  it.  No, 
there  was  only  one  example  of  the  perfect  style,  and  that 
was  the  Code  NapoUon;  for  there  alone  everything  was 
subordinated  to  the  exact  and  complete  expression  of  what 
was  to  be  said.  A  statement  of  law  can  have  no  place  for 
irrelevant  beauties,  or  the  vagueness  of  personal  feeling; 
by  its  very  nature,  it  must  resemble  a  sheet  of  plate  glass 
through  which  every  object  may  be  seen  with  absolute  dis- 
tinctness, in  its  true  shape.  Beyle  declared  that  he  was  in 
the  habit  of  reading  several  paragraphs  of  the  Code  every 
morning  after  breakfast  "  pour  prendre  le  ton."    This  again 


278  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

was  for  long  supposed  to  be  one  of  his  little  jokes;  but  quite 
lately  the  searchers  among  the  MSS.  at  Grenoble  have  dis- 
covered page  after  page  copied  out  from  the  Code  in  Beyle's 
handwriting.  No  doubt,  for  that  wayward  lover  of  para- 
doxes, the  real  joke  lay  in  everybody  taking  for  a  joke  what 
he  took  quite  seriously. 

This  attempt  to  reach  the  exactitude  and  the  detachment 
of  an  official  document  was  not  limited  to  Beyle's  style;  it 
runs  through  the  whole  tissue  of  his  work.  He  wished  to 
present  life  dispassionately  and  intellectually,  and  if  he  could 
have  reduced  his  novels  to  a  series  of  mathematical  sym- 
bols, he  would  have  been  charmed.  The  contrast  between 
his  method  and  that  of  Balzac  is  remarkable.  That  wonder- 
ful art  of  materialisation,  of  the  sensuous  evocation  of  the 
forms,  the  qualities,  the  very  stuff  and  substance  of  things, 
which  was  perhaps  Balzac's  greatest  discovery,  Beyle  neither 
possessed  nor  wished  to  possess.  Such  matters  were  to  him 
of  the  most  subordinate  importance,  .which  it  was  no  small 
part  of  the  novelist's  duty  to  keep  very  severely  in  their 
place.  In  the  earlier  chapters  of  Le  Rouge  et  Le  Noir,  for 
instance,  he  is  concerned  with  almost  the  same  subject  as 
Balzac  in  the  opening  of  Les  Illusions  Perdues — the  position 
of  a  young  man  in  a  provincial  town,  brought  suddenly  from 
the  humblest  surroundings  into  the  midst  of  the  leading 
society  of  the  place  through  his  intimate  relations  with  a 
woman  of  refinement.  But  while  in  Balzac's  pages  what 
emerges  is  the  concrete  vision  of  provincial  life  down  to  the 
last  pimple  on  the  nose  of  the  lowest  footman,  Beyle  con- 
centrates his  whole  attention  on  the  personal  problem,  hints 
in  a  few  rapid  strokes  at  what  Balzac  has  spent  all  his 


HENRI  BEYLE  279 

genius  in  describing,  and  reveals  to  us  instead,  with  the 
precision  of  a  surgeon  at  an  operation,  the  inmost  fibres  of 
his  hero's  mind.  In  fact,  Beyle's  method  is  the  classical 
method — the  method  of  selection,  of  omission,  of  unification, 
with  the  object  of  creating  a  central  impression  of  supreme 
reality.     Zola  criticises  him  for  disregarding  "  le  milieu." 

II  y  a  [he  says]  un  episode  celebre  dans  Le  Rouge  et  Le 
Noir,  la  scene  ou  JuHen,  assis  un  soir  a  cote  de  Mme.  de  Renal, 
sous  les  branches  noires  d'un  arbre,  se  fait  un  devoir  de  lui  prendre 
la  main,  pendant  qu'elle  cause  avec  Mme.  Derville.  C'est  un 
petit  drame  muet  d'une  grande  puissance,  et  Stendhal  y  a  analyse 
merveilleusement  les  etats  d'ame  de  ses  deux  personnages.  Or, 
le  milieu  n'apparait  pas  une  seule  fois.  Nous  pourrions  etre 
n'importe  ou  dans  n'importe  quelles  conditions,  la  scene  resterait 
la  meme  pourvu  qu'il  fit  noir.  .  .  .  Donnez  1 'episode  a  un  ecrivain 
pour  qui  les  milieux  existent,  et  dans  la  defaite  de  cette  femme,  il 
f era  entrer  la  nuit,  avec  ses  odeurs,  avec  ses  voix,  avec  ses  voluptes 
moUes.  Et  cet  ecrivain  sera  dans  le  verite,  son  tableau  sera  plus 
complet. 

More  complete,  perhaps;  but  would  it  be  more  convincing? 
Zola,  with  his  statistical  conception  of  art,  could  not  under- 
stand that  you  could  tell  a  story  properly  unless  you  de- 
scribed in  detail  every  contingent  fact.  He  could  not  see 
that  Beyle  was  able,  by  simply  using  the  s5mibol  "  nuit," 
to  suggest  the  "  milieu  "  at  once  to  the  reader's  imagination. 
Everybody  knows  all  about  the  night's  accessories — "  ses 
odeurs,  ses  voix,  ses  voluptes  molles  ";  and  what  a  relief 
it  is  to  be  spared,  for  once  in  a  way,  an  elaborate  expatiation 
upon  them!  And  Beyle  is  perpetually  evoking  the  gratitude 
of  his  readers  in  this  way.  "  Comme  il  insiste  peu !  "  as 
M.  Gide  exclaims.    Perhaps  the  best  test  of  a  man's  intelli- 


28o  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

gence  is  his  capacity  for  making  a  summary.  Beyle  knew 
this,  and  his  novels  are  full  of  passages  which  read  like 
nothing  so  much  as  extraordinarily  able  summaries  of  some 
enormous  original  narrative  which  has  been  lost. 

It  was  not  that  he  was  lacking  in  observation,  that  he 
had  no  eye  for  detail,  or  no  power  of  expressing  it;  on  the 
contrary,  his  vision  was  of  the  sharpest,  and  his  pen  could 
call  up  pictorial  images  of  startling  vividness,  when  he 
wished.  But  he  very  rarely  did  wish:  it  was  apt  to  involve 
a  tiresome  insistence.  In  his  narratives  he  is  like  a  brilliant 
talker  in  a  sympathetic  circle,  skimming  swiftly  from  point 
to  point,  taking  for  granted  the  intelligence  of  his  audience, 
not  afraid  here  and  there  to  throw  out  a  vague  "  etc."  when 
the  rest  of  the  sentence  is  too  obvious  to  state;  always  plain 
of  speech,  never  self-assertive,  and  taking  care  above  all 
things  never  to  force  the  note.  His  famous  description  of 
the  Battle  of  Waterloo  in  La  Chartreuse  de  Parme  is  cer- 
tainly the  finest  example  of  this  side  of  his  art.  Here  he 
produces  an  indelible  impression  by  a  series  of  light  touches 
applied  with  unerring  skill.  Unlike  Zola,  unhke  Tolstoi, 
he  shows  us  neither  the  loathsomeness  nor  the  devastation 
of  a  battlefield,  but  its  insignificance,  its  irrelevant  detail,  its 
unmeaning  grotesquenesses  and  indignities,  its  incoherence, 
and  its  empty  weariness.  Remembering  his  own  experience 
at  Bautzen,  he  has  made  his  hero — a  young  Italian  impelled 
by  Napoleonic  enthusiasm  to  join  the  French  army  as  a 
volunteer  on  the  eve  of  the  battle — go  through  the  great 
day  in  such  a  state  of  vague  perplexity  that  in  the  end  he 
can  never  feel  quite  certain  that  he  really  was  at  Waterloo. 
He  experiences  a  succession  of  trivial  and  unpleasant  inci- 


HENRI  BEYLE  281 

dents,  culminating  in  his  being  hoisted  off  his  horse  by  two 
of  his  comrades,  in  order  that  a  general,  who  has  had  his 
own  shot  from  under  him,  might  be  supplied  with  a  mount; 
for  the  rest,  he  crosses  and  recrosses  some  fields,  comes  upon 
a  dead  body  in  a  ditch,  drinks  brandy  with  a  vivandiere, 
gallops  over  a  field  covered  with  dying  men,  has  an  indefinite 
skirmish  in  a  wood — and  it  is  over.  At  one  moment,  having 
joined  the  escort  of  some  generals,  the  young  man  allows 
his  horse  to  splash  into  a  stream,  thereby  covering  one  of 
the  generals  with  muddy  water  from  head  to  foot.  The 
passage  that  follows  is  a  good  specimen  of  Beyle's  narrative 
style: 

En  arrivant  sur  I'autre  rive,  Fabrice  y  avait  trouve  les 
generaux  tout  seuls;  le  bruit  du  canon  lui  sembla  redoubler;  ce 
fut  a  peine  s'il  entendit  le  general,  par  lui  si  bien  mouille,  qui 
criait  a  son  oreille: 

Oil  as-tu  pris  ce  cheval? 

Fabrice  etait  tellement  trouble,  qu'il  repondit  en  Italien:  I' ho 
comprato  poco  fa.     (Je  viens  de  I'acheter  a  I'instant). 

Que  dis-tu?  lui  cria  le  general. 

Mais  le  tapage  devint  tellement  fort  en  ce  moment,  que 
Fabrice  ne  put  lui  repondre.  Nous  avouerons  que  notre  heros 
etait  fort  peu  heros  en  ce  moment.  Toutefois,  la  peur  ne  venait 
chez  lui  qu'en  seconde  ligne;  il  etait  surtout  scandalise  de  ce 
bruit  qui  lui  faisait  mal  aux  oreilles.  L'escorte  prit  le  galop;  on 
traversait  une  grande  piece  de  terre  labouree,  situee  au  dela  du 
canal,  et  ce  champ  etait  jonche  de  cadavres. 

How  unemphatic  it  all  is!  What  a  paucity  of  epithet, 
what  a  reticence  in  explanation!  How  a  Romantic  would 
have  lingered  over  the  facial  expression  of  the  general,  and 
how  a  Naturalist  would  have  analysed  that  "  tapage  " !  And 
yet,  with  all  their  efforts,  would  they  have  succeeded  in 


282  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

conveying  that  singular  impression  of  disturbance,  of  cross- 
purposes,  of  hurry,  and  of  ill-defined  fear,  which  Beyle  with 
his  quiet  terseness  has  produced? 

It  is,  however,  in  his  psychological  studies  that  the  de- 
tached and  intellectual  nature  of  Beyle's  method  is  most 
clearly  seen.  When  he  is  describing,  for  instance,  the  de- 
velopment of  Julien  Sorel's  mind  in  Le  Rouge  et  Le  Noir, 
when  he  shows  us  the  soul  of  the  young  peasant  with  its 
ignorance,  its  ambition,  its  pride,  going  step  by  step  into  the 
whirling  vortex  of  life — then  we  seem  to  be  witnessing  not 
so  much  the  presentment  of  a  fiction  as  the  unfolding  of 
some  scientific  fact.  The  procedure  is  almost  mathematical: 
a  proposition  is  established,  the  inference  is  drawn,  the  next 
proposition  follows,  and  so  on  until  the  demonstration  is 
complete.  Here  the  influence  of  the  eighteenth  century  is 
very  strongly  marked.  Beyle  had  drunk  deeply  of  that 
fountain  of  syllogism  and  analysis  that  flows  through  the 
now  forgotten  pages  of  Helvetius  and  Condillac;  he  was  an 
ardent  votary  of  logic  in  its  austerest  form — "  la  lo-gique  " 
he  used  to  call  it,  dividing  the  syllables  in  a  kind  of  awe- 
inspired  emphasis;  and  he  considered  the  ratiocinative  style 
of  Montesquieu  almost  as  good  as  that  of  the  Code  Civil. 

If  this  had  been  all,  if  we  could  sum  him  up  simply  as  an 
acute  and  brilliant  writer  who  displays  the  scientific  and 
prosaic  sides  of  the  French  genius  in  an  extreme  degree, 
Beyle's  position  in  literature  would  present  very  little  diffi- 
culty. He  would  take  his  place  at  once  as  a  late — an  abnor- 
mally late — product  of  the  eighteenth  century.  But  he  was 
not  that.  In  his  blood  there  was  a  virus  which  had  never 
tingled  in  the  veins  of  Voltaire.    It  was  the  virus  of  modern 


HENRI  BEYLE  283 

life — that  new  sensibility,  that  new  passionateness,  which 
Rousseau  had  first  made  known  to  the  world,  and  which 
had  won  its  way  over  Europe  behind  the  thunder  of  Napo- 
leon's artillery.  Beyle  had  passed  his  youth  within  earshot 
of  that  mighty  roar,  and  his  inmost  spirit  could  never  lose 
the  echo  of  it.  It  was  in  vain  that  he  studied  Condillac 
and  modelled  his  style  on  the  Code;  in  vain  that  he  sang 
the  praises  of  la  Lo-gique,  shrugged  his  shoulders  at  the 
Romantics,  and  turned  the  cold  eye  of  a  scientific  investi- 
gator upon  the  phenomena  of  life;  he  remained  essentially 
a  man  of  feeling.  His  unending  series  of  grandes  passions 
was  one  unmistakeable  sign  of  this;  another  was  his  intense 
devotion  to  the  Fine  Arts.  Though  his  taste  in  music  and 
painting  was  the  taste  of  his  time^the  literary  and  senti- 
mental taste  of  the  age  of  Rossini  and  Canova — he  never- 
theless brought  to  the  appreciation  of  works  of  art  a  kind 
of  intimate  gusto  which  reveals  the  genuineness  of  his  emo- 
tion. The  "  jouissances  d'ange,"  with  which  at  his  first 
entrance  into  Italy  he  heard  at  Novara  the  Matrimonio 
Segreto  of  Cimarosa,  marked  an  epoch  in  ^is  life.  He  adored 
Mozart:  "  I  can  imagine  nothing  more  distasteful  to  me," 
he  said,  "than  a  thirty-mile  walk  through  the  mud;  but 
I  would  take  one  at  this  moment  if  I  knew  that  I  should 
hear  a  good  performance  of  Don  Giovanni  at  the  end  of 
it."  The  virgins  of  Guido  Reni  sent  him  into  ecstasies  and 
the  Goddesses  of  Correggio  into  raptures.  In  short,  as  he 
himself  admitted,  he  never  could  resist  "  le  Beau  "  in  what- 
ever form  he  found  it.  Le  Beau!  The  phrase  is  character- 
istic of  the  peculiar  species  of  ingenuous  sensibility  which 
so  oddly  agitated  this  sceptical  man  of  the  world.    His  whole 


284  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

vision  of  life  was  coloured  by  it.  His  sense  of  values  was 
impregnated  with  what  he  called  his  "  espagnolisme  " — his 
immense  admiration  for  the  noble  and  the  high-resounding 
in  speech  or  act  or  character— an  admiration  which  landed 
him  often  enough  in  hysterics  and  absurdity.  Yet  this  was 
the  soil  in  which  a  temperament  of  caustic  reasonableness 
had  somehow  implanted  itself.  The  contrast  is  surprising, 
because  it  is  s6  extreme.  Other  men  have  been  by  turns 
sensible  and  enthusiastic:  but  who  before  or  since  has  com- 
bined the  emotionalism  of  a  schoolgirl  with  the  cold  pene- 
tration of  a  judge  on  the  bench?  Beyle,  for  instance,  was 
capable  of  writing,  in  one  of  those  queer  epitaphs  of  himself 
which  he  was  constantly  composing,  the  high-falutin'  words 
"  II  respecta  un  seul  homme:  Napoleon  ";  and  yet,  as  he 
wrote  them,  he  must  have  remembered  well  enough  that 
when  he  met  Napoleon  face  to  face  his  unabashed  scrutiny 
had  detected  swiftly  that  the  man  was  a  play-actor,  and 
a  vulgar  one  at  that.  Such  were  the  contradictions  of  his 
double  nature,  in  which  the  elements,  instead  of  being  mixed, 
came  together,  as  it  were,  in  layers,  like  superimposed  strata 
of  chalk  and  flint. 

In  his  novels  this  cohabitation  of  opposites  is  responsible 
both  for  what  is  best  and  what  is  worst.  When  the  two 
forces  work  in  unison  the  result  is  sometimes  of  extraordi- 
nary value — a.  product  of  a  kind  which  it  would  be  difficult 
to  parallel  in  any  other  author.  An  eye  of  icy  gaze  is 
turned  upon  the  tumultuous  secrets  of  passion,  and  the 
pangs  of  love  are  recorded  in  the  language  of  Euclid.  The 
image  of  the  surgeon  inevitably  suggests  itself — the  hand 
with  the  iron  nerve  and  the  swift  knife  la)dng  bare  the 


HENRI  BEYLE  285 

trembling  mysteries  within.  It  is  the  intensity  of  Beyle's 
observation,  joined  with  such  an  exactitude  of  exposition, 
that  makes  his  dry  pages  sometimes  more  thrilling  than 
the  wildest  tale  of  adventure  or  all  the  marvels  of  high 
romance.  The  passage  in  La  Chartreuse  de  Parme  describ- 
ing Count  Mosca's  jealousy  has  this  quality,  which  appears 
even  more  clearly  in  the  chapters  of  Le  Rouge  et  Le  Noir 
concerning  Julien  Sorel  and  Mathilde  de  la  Mole.  Here 
Beyle  has  a  subject  after  his  own  heart.  The  loves  of  the 
peasant  youth  and  the  aristocratic  girl,  traversed  and  agi- 
tated by  their  overweening  pride,  and  triumphing  at  last 
rather  over  themselves  than  over  each  other — these  things 
make  up  a  gladiatorial  combat  of  "  espagnolismes,"  which  is 
displayed  to  the  reader  with  a  supreme  incisiveness.  The 
climax  is  reached  when  Mathilde  at  last  gives  way  to  her 
passion,  and  throws  herself  into  the  arms  of  Julien,  who 
forces  himself  to  make  no  response: 

Ses  bras  se  roidirent,  tant  I'effort  impose  par  la  politique  etait 
penible.  Je  ne  dois  pas  meme  me  permettre  de  presser  centre 
mon  coeur  ce  corps  souple  et  charmant;  ou  elle  me  meprise,  ou 
elle  me  maltraite.    Quel  affreux  caractere! 

Et  en  maudissant  le  caractere  de  Mathilde,  il  I'en  aimait  cent 
fois  plus;  il  lui  semblait  avoir  dans  ses  bras  une  reine. 

L 'impassible  froideur  de  Julien  redoubla  le  malheur  de  Made- 
moiselle de  la  Mole.  Elle  etait  loin  d'avoir  le  sang-froid  neces- 
saire  pour  chercher  a  deviner  dans  ses  yeux  ce  qu'il  sentait  pour 
elle  en  cet  instant.  Elle  ne  put  se  resoudre  a  le  regarder;  elle 
tremblait  de  rencontrer  I'expression  du  mepris. 

Assise  sur  le  divan  de  la  bibliotheque,  immobile  et  la  tete 
tournee  du  cote  oppose  a  Julien,  elle  etait  en  proie  aux  plus  vives 
douleurs  que  I'orgueil  et  I'amour  puissent  faire  eprouver  a  une 
ame  humaine.  Dans  quelle  atroce  demarche  elle  venait  de  tomber! 

II  m'etait  reserve,  malheureuse  que  je  suis!  de  voir  repoussees 


286  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

les  avances  les  plus  indecentes!    Et  repoussees  par  qui?    ajoutait 
I'orgueil  fou  de  douleur,  repoussees  par  un  domestique  de  mon 
pere. 
C'est  ce  que  je  ne  souffrirai  pas,  dit-elle  a  haute  voix. 

At  that  moment  she  suddenly  sees  some  unopened  letters 
addressed  to  Julien  by  another  woman. 

—  Ainsi,  s'ecria-t-elle  hors  d'elle-meme,  non  seulement  vous 
ctes  bien  avec  elle,  mais  encore  vous  la  meprisez,  Vous,  un 
homme  de  rien,  mepriser  Madame  la  Marechale  de  Fervaques! 

—  Ah!  pardon,  mon  ami,  ajouta-t-elle  en  se  jetant  a  ses 
genoux,  meprise-moi  si  tu  veux,  mais  aime-moi,  je  ne  puis  plus 
vivre  privee  de  ton  amour.    Et  elle  tomba  tout  a  fait  evanouie. 

—  La  voila  done,  cette  orgueilleuse,  a  mes  pieds!  se  dit 
Julien. 

Such  is  the  opening  of  this  wonderful  scene,  which  con- 
tains the  concentrated  essence  of  Beyle's  genius,  and  which, 
in  its  combination  of  high  passion,  intellectual  intensity  and 
dramatic  force,  may  claim  comparison  with  the  great  dia- 
logues of  Corneille. 

"Je  fais  tous  les  efforts  possibles  pour  etre  sec"  he  sdiys 
of  himself.  "  Je  veux  imposer  silence  a  mon  coeur,  qui  croit 
avoir  beaucoup  a  dire.  Je  tremble  toujours  de  n'avoir  ecrit 
qu'un  soupir,  quand  je  crois  avoir  note  une  verite."  Often 
he  succeeds,  but  not  always.  At  times  his  desire  for  dryness 
becomes  a  mannerism  and  fills  whole  pages  with  tedious  and 
obscure  argumentation.  And,  at  other  times,  his  sensibility 
gets  the  upper  hand,  throws  off  all  control,  and  revels  in 
an  orgy  of  melodrama  and  "  espagnolisme."  Do  what  he 
will,  he  cannot  keep  up  a  consistently  critical  attitude  to- 
wards the  creatures  of  his  imagination:  he  depreciates  his 
heroes  with  extreme  care,  but  in  the  end  they  get  the  better 


HENRI  BEYLE  287 

of  him  and  sweep  him  off  his  feet.  When,  in  La  Chartreuse 
de  Partne,  Fabrice  kills  a  man  in  a  duel,  his  first  action 
is  to  rush  to  a  looking-glass  to  see  whether  his  beauty  has 
been  injured  by  a  cut  in  the  face;  and  Beyle  does  not  laugh 
at  this;  he  is  impressed  by  it.  In  the  same  book  he  lavishes 
all  his  art  on  the  creation  of  the  brilliant,  worldly,  sceptical 
Duchesse  de  Sanseverina,  and  then,  not  quite  satisfied,  he 
makes  her  concoct  and  carry  out  the  murder  of  the  reigning 
Prince  in  order  to  satisfy  a  desire  for  amorous  revenge. 
This  really  makes  her  perfect.  But  the  most  striking  ex- 
ample of  Beyle's  inability  to  resist  the  temptation  of  sac- 
rificing his  head  to  his  heart  is  in  the  conclusion  of  Le  Rouge 
et  Le  Noir,  where  Julien,  to  be  revenged  on  a  former  mistress 
who  defames  him,  deliberately  goes  down  into  the  country, 
buys  a  pistol,  and  shoots  the  lady  in  church..  Not  only  is 
Beyle  entranced  by  the  bravura  of  this  senseless  piece  of 
brutality,  but  he  destroys  at  a  blow  the  whole  atmosphere 
of  impartial  observation  which  fills  the  rest  of  the  book, 
lavishes  upon  his  hero  the  blindest  admiration,  and  at  last, 
at  the  moment  of  Julien's  execution,  even  forgets  himself  so 
far  as  to  write  a  sentence  in  the  romantic  style :  "  Jamais 
cette  tete  n'avait  ete  aussi  poetique  qu'au  moment  011  elle 
allait  tomber."  Just  as  Beyle,  in  his  contrary  mood,  carries 
to  an  extreme  the  French  love  of  logical  precision,  so  in  these 
rhapsodies  he  expresses  in  an  exaggerated  form  a  very  differ- 
ent but  an  equally  characteristic  quality  of  his  compatriots 
— their  instinctive  responsiveness  to  fine  poses.  It  is  a 
quality  that  Englishmen  in  particular  find  it  hard  to  sym- 
pathise with.  They  remain  stolidly  unmoved  when  their 
neighbours  are  in  ecstasies.     They  are  repelled  by   the 


288  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

"  noble  "  rhetoric  of  the  French  Classical  Drama;  they  find 
the  tirades  of  Napoleon,  which  animated  the  armies  of 
France  to  victory,  pieces  of  nauseous  clap-trap.  And  just 
now  it  is  this  side — to  us  the  obviously  weak  side — of  Beyle's 
genius  that  seems  to  be  most  in  favour  with  French  critics. 
To  judge  from  M.  Barres,  writing  dithyrambically  of  Beyle's 
"  sentiment  d'honneur,"  that  is  his  true  claim  to  greatness. 
The  sentiment  of  honour  is  all  very  well,  one  is  inclined  to 
mutter  on  this  side  of  the  Channel;  but  oh,  for  a  little  senti- 
ment of  humour  too! 

The  view  of  Beyle's  personality  which  his  novels  give  us 
may  be  seen  with  far  greater  detail  in  his  miscellaneous 
writings.  It  is  to  these  that  his  most  modern  admirers 
devote  their  main  attention — ^particularly  to  his  letters  and 
his  autobiographies;  but  they  are  all  of  them  highly  charac- 
teristic of  their  author,  and — whatever  the  subject  may  be, 
from  a  guide  to  Rome  to  a  life  of  Napoleon — one  gathers 
in  them,  scattered  up  and  down  through  their  pages,  a  curi- 
ous, dimly-adumbrated  philosophy — an  ill-defined  and  yet 
intensely  personal  point  of  view — le  Beylisme.  It  is  in  fact 
almost  entirely  in  this  secondary  quality  that  their  interest 
lies;  their  ostensible  subject-matter  is  unimportant.  An  ap- 
parent exception  is  the  book  in  which  Beyle  has  embodied 
his  reflections  upon  Love.  The  volume,  with  its  meticulous 
apparatus  of  analysis,  definition,  and  classification,  which 
gives  it  the  air  of  being  a  parody  of  "  L'Esprit  des  Lois," 
is  yet  full  of  originality,  of  lively  anecdote  and  keen  observa- 
tion. Nobody  but  Beyle  could  have  written  it;  nobody 
but  Beyle  could  have  managed  to  be  at  once  so  stimulating 
and  so  jejune,  so  clear-sighted  and  so  exasperating.    But  here 


HENRI  BEYLE  289 

again,  in  reality,  it  is  not  the  question  at  issue  that  is  inter- 
esting— one  learns  more  of  the  true  nature  of  Love  in  one 
or  two  of  La  Bruyere's  short  sentences  than  in  all  Beyle's 
three  hundred  pages  of  disquisition;  but  what  is  absorbing 
is  the  sense  that  comes  to  one,  as  one  reads  it,  of  the  pres- 
ence, running  through  it  all,  of  a  restless  and  problematical 
spirit.  "  Le  Beylisme  "  is  certainly  not  susceptible  of  any 
exact  definition;  its  author  was  too  capricious,  too  unmethod- 
ical, in  spite  of  his  lo-gique,  ever  to  have  framed  a  coherent 
philosophy;  it  is  essentially  a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches, 
of  hints,  suggestions,  and  quick  visions  of  flying  thoughts. 
M.  Barres  says  that  what  lies  at  the  bottom  of  it  is  a  "  pas- 
sion de  collectionner  les  belles  energies."  But  there  are 
many  kinds  of  "  belles  energies,"  and  some  of  them 
certainly  do  not  fit  into  the  framework  of  "  le  Beylisme." 
"  Quand  je  suis  arrete  par  des  voleurs,  ou  qu'on  me  tire  des 
coups  de  fusil,  je  me  sens  une  grande  colere  centre  le  gouv- 
ernement  et  le  cure  de  I'endroit.  Quand  au  voleur,  il  me 
plait,  s'il  est  energique,  car  il  m'amuse."  It  was  the  energy 
of  self-assertiveness  that  pleased  Beyle;  that  of  self-restraint 
did  not  interest  him.  The  immorality  of  the  point  of  view 
is  patent  and  at  times  it  appears  to  be  simply  based  upon 
the  common  selfishness  of  an  egotist.  But  in  reality  it  was 
something  more  significant  than  that.  The  "  chasse  au  bon- 
heur  "  which  Beyle  was  always  advocating  was  no  respect- 
able epicureanism;  it  had  about  it  a  touch  of  the  fanatical. 
There  was  anarchy  in  it — a  hatred  of  authority,  an  impa- 
tience with  custom,  above  all  a  scorn  for  the  commonplace 
dictates  of  ordinary  morality.  Writing  his  memoirs  at  the 
age  of  fifty-two,  Beyle  looked  back  with  pride  on  the  joy 


290  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

that  he  had  felt,  as  a  child  of  ten,  amid  his  royalist  family 
at  Grenoble,  when  the  news  came  of  the  execution  of  Louis 
XVI.    His  father  announced  it: 

— C'en  est  fait,  dit-il  avec  un  gros  soupir,  ils  Tent  assassine. 

Je  fus  saisi  d'lin  des  plus  vifs  mouvements  de  joie  que  j'a 
eprouve  en  ma  vie,  Le  lecteur  pensera  peut-etre  que  je  suis  cruel, 
mais  tel  j'etais  a  5  X  2,  tel  je  suis  a  10  X  5  +  2.  ...  Je  puis 
dire  que  I'approbation  des  etres,  que  je  regarde  comme  faibles, 
m'est  absolument  indifferente. 

These  are  the  words  of  a  born  rebel,  and  such  sentiments 
are  constantly  recurring  in  his  books.  He  is  always  dis- 
charging his  shafts  against  some  established  authority;  and, 
of  course,  he  reserved  his  bitterest  hatred  for  the  proudest 
and  most  insidious  of  all  authorities — the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  It  is  odd  to  find  some  of  the  "  Beylistes  "  solemnly 
hailing  the  man  whom  the  power  of  the  Jesuits  haunted 
like  a  nightmare,  and  whose  account  of  the  seminary  in 
Le  Rouge  et  Le  Noir  is  one  of  the  most  scathing  pictures 
of  religious  tyranny  ever  drawn,  as  a  prophet  of  the  present 
Catholic  movement  in  France.  For  in  truth,  if  Beyle  was 
a  prophet  of  anything  he  was  a  prophet  of  that  spirit  of 
revolt  in  modern  thought  which  first  reached  a  complete 
expression  in  the  pages  of  Nietzsche.  His  love  of  power 
and  self-will,  his  aristocratic  outlook,  his  scorn  of  the  Chris- 
tian virtues,  his  admiration  of  the  Italians  of  the  Renais- 
sance, his  repudiation  of  the  herd  and  the  morality  of  the 
herd — these  qualities,  flashing  strangely  among  his  observa- 
tions on  Rossini  and  the  Coliseum,  his  reflections  on  the 
memories  of  the  past  and  his  musings  on  the  ladies  of  the 
present,  certainly  give  a  surprising  fore-taste  of  the  fiery 


HENRI  BEYLE  291 

potion  of  Zarathustra.  The  creator  of  the  Duchesse  de 
Sanseverina  had  caught  more  than  a  glimpse  of  the  trans- 
valuation  of  all  values.  Characteristically  enough,  the  ap- 
pearance of  this  new  potentiality  was  only  observed  by  two 
contemporary  forces  in  European  society — Goethe  and  the 
Austrian  police.  It  is  clear  that  Goethe  alone  among  the 
critics  of  the  time  understood  that  Beyle  was  something 
more  than  a  novelist,  and  discerned  an  uncanny  significance 
in  his  pages.  "I  do  not  like  reading  M.  de  Stendhal,"  he 
observed  to  Winckelmann,  "  but  I  cannot  help  doing  so. 
He  is  extremely  free  and  extremely  impertinent,  and  .  .  . 
I  recommend  you  to  buy  all  his  books."  As  for  the  Austrian 
police,  they  had  no  doubt  about  the  matter,  Beyle's  book 
of  travel,  Rome,  Naples  et  Florence,  was,  they  decided, 
pernicious  and  dangerous  in  the  highest  degree;  and  the  poor 
man  was  hunted  out  of  Milan  in  consequence. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  Beyle  displayed 
in  his  private  life  the  qualities  of  the  superman.  Neither 
his  virtues  nor  his  vices  were  on  the  grand  scale.  In  his 
own  person  he  never  seems  to  have  committed  an  "  espag- 
nolisme."  Perhaps  his  worst  sin  was  that  of  plagiarism: 
his  earliest  book,  a  life  of  Haydn,  was  almost  entirely 
"lifted"  from  the  work  of  a  learned  German;  and  in  his 
next  he  embodied  several  choice  extracts  culled  from  the 
Edinburgh  Review.  On  this  occasion  he  was  particularly 
delighted,  since  the  Edinburgh,  in  reviewing  the  book,  inno- 
cently selected  for  special  approbation  the  very  passages 
which  he  had  stolen.  It  is  singular  that  so  original  a  writer 
should  have  descended  to  pilfering.  But  Beyle  was  nothing 
if  not  inconsistent.     With  all  his  Classicism  he  detested 


292  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

Racine;  with  all  his  love  of  music  he  could  see  nothing 
in  Beethoven;  he  adored  Italy,  and,  so  soon  as  he  was  given 
his  Italian  consulate,  he  was  usually  to  be  found  in  Paris. 
As  his  life  advanced  he  grew  more  and  more  wayward, 
capricious,  and  eccentric.  He  indulged  in  queer  mystifica- 
tions, covering  his  papers  with  false  names  and  anagrams — 
for  the  police,  he  said,  were  on  his  track,  and  he  must  be 
careful.  His  love-affairs  became  less  and  less  fortunate; 
but  he  was  still  sometimes  successful,  and  when  he  was  he 
registered  the  fact — upon  his  braces.  He  dreamed  and 
drifted  a  great  deal.  He  went  up  to  San  Pietro  in  Montorio, 
and  looking  over  Rome,  wrote  the  initials  of  his  past  mis- 
tresses in  the  dust.  He  tried  to  make  up  his  mind  whether 
Napoleon  after  all  was  the  only  being  he  respected;  no- 
there  was  also  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse.  He  went  to  the 
opera  at  Naples  and  noted  that  "  la  musique  parfaite,  comme 
la  pantomime  parfaite,  me  fait  songer  a  ce  qui  forme 
actuellement  Tobjet  de  mes  reveries  et  me  fait  venir  des 
idees  excellentes:  ...  or,  ce  soir,  je  ne  puis  me  dissimuler 
que  j'ai  le  malheur  of  being  too  great  an  admirer  of  Lady 
L.  .  .  ."  He  abandoned  himself  to  "  les  charmantes  visions 
du  Beau  qui  souvent  encore  remplissent  ma  tete  a  I'age  de 
fifty-two."  He  wondered  whether  Montesquieu  would  have 
thought  his  writings  worthless.  He  sat  scribbling  his  remi- 
niscences by  the  fire  till  the  night  drew  on  and  the  fire 
went  out,  and  still  he  scribbled,  more  and  more  illegibly, 
until  at  last  the  paper  was  covered  with  hieroglyphics  un- 
decipherable even  by  M.  Chuquet  himself.  He  wandered 
among  the  ruins  of  ancient  Rome,  playing  to  perfection 
the  part  of  cicerone  to  such  travellers  as  were  lucky  enough 


HENRI  BEYLE  293 

to  fall  in  with  him;  and  often  his  stout  and  jovial  form,  with 
the  satyric  look  in  the  sharp  eyes  and  the  compressed  lips, 
might  be  seen  by  the  wayside  in  the  Campagna,  as  he  stood 
and  jested  with  the  reapers  or  the  vine-dressers  or  with 
the  girls  coming  out,  as  they  had  come  since  the  days  of 
Horace,  to  draw  water  from  the  fountains  of  Tivoli.  In 
more  cultivated  society  he  was  apt  to  be  nervous;  for  his 
philosophy  was  never  proof  against  the  terror  of  being 
laughed  at.  But  sometimes,  late  at  night,  when  the  sur- 
roundings were  really  sympathetic,  he  could  be  very  happy 
among  his  friends.  "  Un  salon  de  huit  ou  dix  personnes," 
he  said,  "  dont  toutes  les  femmes  ont  eu  des  amants,  ou  la 
conversation  est  gaie,  anecdotique,  et  od  I'on  prend  du 
punch  leger  k  minuit  et  demie,  est  I'endroit  du  monde  ou 
je  me  trouve  le  mieux." 

And  in  such  a  Paradise  of  Frenchmen  we  may  leave  Henri 
Beyle, 

1914. 


LADY  HESTER  STANHOPE 


LADY  HESTER  STANHOPE 


LADY  HESTER  STANHOPE 

The  Pitt  nose  has  a  curious  history.  One  can  watch  its 
transmigrations  through  three  lives.  The  tremendous  hook 
of  old  Lord  Chatham,  under  whose  curve  Empires  came 
to  birth,  was  succeeded  by  the  bleak  upward-pointing  nose 
of  William  Pitt  the  younger — the  rigid  symbol  of  an  in- 
domitable hauteur.  With  Lady  Hester  Stanhope  came  the 
final  stage.  The  nose,  still  with  an  upward  tilt  in  it,  had 
lost  its  masculinity;  the  hard  bones  of  the  uncle  and  the 
grandfather  had  disappeared.  Lady  Hester's  was  a  nose 
of  wild  ambitions,  of  pride  grown  fantastical,  a  nose  that 
scorned  the  earth,  shooting  off,  one  fancies,  towards  some 
eternally  eccentric  heaven.  It  was  a  nose,  in  fact,  altogether 
in  the  air. 

Noses,  of  course,  are  aristocratic  things;  and  Lady  Hes- 
ter was  the  child  of  a  great  aristocracy.  But,  in  her  case, 
the  aristocratic  impulse,  which  had  carried  her  predecessors 
to  glory,  had  less  fortunate  results.  There  has  always  been 
a  strong  strain  of  extravagance  in  the  governing  families 
of  England;  from  time  to  time  they  throw  off  some  peculiarly 
ill-balanced  member,  who  performs  a  strange  meteoric  course. 
A  century  earlier.  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  was  an 
illustrious  example  of  this  tendency:  that  splendid  comet, 
after  filling  half  the  heavens,  vanished  suddenly  into  deso- 
lation and  darkness.     Lady  Hester  Stanhope's  spirit  was 

297 


298  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

still  more  uncommon;  and  she  met  with  a  most  uncommon 
fate. 

She  was  born  in  1776,  the  eldest  daughter  of  that  ex- 
traordinary Earl  Stanhope,  Jacobin  and  inventor,  who  made 
the  first  steamboat  and  the  first  calculating  machine,  who 
defended  the  French  Revolution  in  the  House  of  Lords  and 
erased  the  armorial  bearings — "  damned  aristocratical  non- 
sense " — from  his  carriages  and  his  plate.  Her  mother, 
Chatham's  daughter  and  the  favourite  sister  of  Pitt,  died 
when  she  was  four  years  old.  The  second  Lady  Stanhope, 
a  frigid  woman  of  fashion,  left  her  stepdaughters  to  the  care 
of  futile  governesses,  while  "  Citizen  Stanhope  "  ruled  the 
household  from  his  laboratory  with  the  violence  of  a  tyrant. 
It  was  not  until  Lady  Hester  was  twenty-four  that  she 
escaped  from  the  slavery  of  her  father's  house,  by  going 
to  live  with  her  grandmother.  Lady  Chatham.  On  Lady 
Chatham's  death,  three  years  later,  Pitt  offered  her  his  pro- 
tection, and  she  remained  with  him  until  his  death  in  1806. 

Her  three  years  with  Pitt,  passed  in  the  very  centre  of 
splendid  power,  were  brilliant  and  exciting.  She  fiung  her- 
self impetuously  into  the  movement  and  the  passion  of  that 
vigorous  society;  she  ruled  her  uncle's  household  with  high 
vivacity;  she  was  liked  and  courted;  if  not  beautiful,  she 
was  fascinating — very  tall,  with  a  very  fair  and  clear  com- 
plexion, and  dark-blue  eyes,  and  a  countenance  of  wonderful 
expressiveness.  Her  talk,  full  of  the  trenchant  nonchalance 
of  those  days,  was  both  amusing  and  alarming:  "  My  dear 
Hester,  what  are  you  saying?  "  Pitt  would  call  out  to  her 
from  across  the  room.  She  was  devoted  to  her  uncle,  who 
warmly  returned  her  affection.    She  was  devoted,  too — but 


LADY  HESTER  STANHOPE  299 

in  a  more  dangerous  fashion — to  the  intoxicating  Antinous, 
Lord  Granville  Leveson  Gower.  The  reckless  manner  in 
which  she  carried  on  this  love-affair  was  the  first  indication 
of  something  overstrained,  something  wild  and  unaccount- 
able, in  her  temperament.  Lord  Granville,  after  flirting  with 
her  outrageously,  declared  that  he  could  never  marry  her, 
and  went  off  on  an  embassy  to  St.  Petersburg.  Her  dis- 
traction was  extreme:  she  hinted  that  she  would  follow  him 
to  Russia;  she  threatened,  and  perhaps  attempted,  suicide; 
she  went  about  telling  everybody  that  he  had  jilted  her. 
She  was  taken  ill,  and  then  there  were  rumours  of  an  ac- 
couchement, which,  it  was  said,  she  took  care  to  afficher, 
by  appearing  without  rouge  and  fainting  on  the  slightest 
provocation.  In  the  midst  of  these  excursions  and  alarums 
there  was  a  terrible  and  unexpected  catastrophe.  Pitt  died. 
And  Lady  Hester  suddenly  found  herself  a  dethroned  prin- 
cess, living  in  a  small  house  in  Montagu  Square  on  a  pension 
of  £1,200  a  year. 

She  did  not  abandon  society,  however,  and  the  tongue 
of  gossip  continued  to  wag.  Her  immediate  marriage  with 
a  former  lover,  Mr.  Hill,  was  announced:  "  il  est  bien  bon," 
said  Lady  Bessborough.  Then  it  was  whispered  that  Can- 
ning was  "  le  regnant  " — that  he  was  with  her  "  not  only 
all  day,  but  almost  all  night."  She  quarrelled  with  Can- 
ning and  became  attached  to  Sir  John  Moore.  Whether 
she  was  actually  engaged  to  marry  him — as  she  seems  to 
have  asserted  many  years  later — is  doubtful;  his  letters  to 
her,  full  as  they  are  of  respectful  tenderness,  hardly  warrant 
the  conclusion;  but  it  is  certain  that  he  died  with  her  name 
on  his  lips.     Her  favourite  brother,  Charles,  was  killed 


300  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

beside  him;  and  it  was  natural  that  under  this  double  blow 
she  should  have  retired  from  London.  She  buried  herself 
in  Wales;  but  not  for  long.  In  1810  she  set  sail  for 
Gibraltar  with  her  brother  James,  who  was  rejoining  his 
regiment  in  the  Peninsula.  She  never  returned  to  Eng- 
land. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  at  the  time  of  her  departure 
the  thought  of  a  lifelong  exile  was  far  from  her  mind.  It 
was  only  gradually,  as  she  moved  further  and  further  east- 
ward, that  the  prospect  of  life  in  England — at  last  even  in 
Europe — grew  distasteful  to  her;  as  late  as  181 6  she  was 
talking  of  a  visit  to  Provence.  Accompanied  by  two  or 
three  English  fellow  travellers,  her  English  maid,  Mrs.  Fry, 
her  private  physician,  Dr.  Meryon,  and  a  host  of  servants, 
she  progressed,  slowly  and  in  a  great  state,  through  Malta 
and  Athens,  to  Constantinople.  She  was  conveyed  in  battle- 
ships, and  lodged  with  governors  and  ambassadors.  After 
spending  many  months  in  Constantinople,  Lady  Hester  dis- 
covered that  she  was  "  dying  to  see  Napoleon  with  her  own 
eyes,"  and  attempted  accordingly  to  obtain  passports  to 
France.  The  project  was  stopped  by  Stratford  Canning, 
the  English  Minister,  upon  which  she  decided  to  visit  Egj^Dt, 
and,  chartering  a  Greek  vessel,  sailed  for  Alexandria  in  the 
winter  of  181 1.  Off  the  island  of  Rhodes  a  violent  storm 
sprang  up;  the  whole  party  were  forced  to  abandon  the 
ship,  and  to  take  refuge  upon  a  bare  rock,  where  they 
remained  without  food  or  shelter  for  thirty  hours.  Eventu- 
ally, after  many  severe  privations,  Alexandria  was  reached 
in  safety;  but  this  disastrous  voyage  was  a  turning-point  in 
Lady  Hester's  career.    At  Rhodes  she  was  forced  to  ex- 


LADY  HESTER  STANHOPE  301 

change  her  torn  and  dripping  raiment  for  the  attire  of  a 
Turkish  gentleman — a  dress  which  she  never  afterwards 
abandoned.    It  was  the  first  step  in  her  orientalization. 

She  passed  the  next  two  years  in  a  triumphal  progress. 
Her  appearance  in  Cairo  caused  the  greatest  sensation,  and 
she  was  received  in  state  by  the  Pasha,  Mehemet  Ali.  Her 
costume  on  this  occasion  was  gorgeous:  she  wore  a  turban 
of  cashmere,  a  brocaded  waistcoat,  a  priceless  pelisse,  and 
a  vast  pair  of  purple  velvet  pantaloons  embroidered  all  over 
in  gold.  She  was  ushered  by  chamberlains  with  silver  wands 
through  the  inner  courts  of  the  palace  to  a  pavilion  in  the 
harem,  where  the  Pasha,  rising  to  receive  her,  conversed  with 
her  for  an  hour.  From  Cairo  she  turned  northwards,  visit- 
ing Jaffa,  Jerusalem,  Acre,  and  Damascus.  Her  travelling 
dress  was  of  scarlet  cloth  trimmed  with  gold,  and,  when  on 
horseback,  she  wore  over  the  whole  a  white-hooded  and 
tasselled  burnous.  Her  maid,  too,  was  forced,  protesting, 
into  trousers,  though  she  absolutely  refused  to  ride  astride. ' 
Poor  Mrs.  Fry  had  gone  through  various  and  dreadful  suf- 
ferings— shipwreck  and  starvation,  rats  and  blackbeetles  un- 
speakable— but  she  retained  her  equanimity.  Whatever  her 
Ladyship  might  think  fit  to  be,  she  was  an  Englishwoman 
to  the  last,  and  Philippaki  was  Philip  Parker  and  Mustapha 
Mr.  Farr. 

Outside  Damascus,  Lady  Hester  was  warned  that  the 
town  was  the  most  fanatical  in  Turkey,  and  that  the  scandal 
of  a  woman  entering  it  in  man's  clothes,  unveiled,  would 
be  so  great  as  to  be  dangerous.  She  was  begged  to  veil 
herself,  and  to  make  her  entry  under  cover  of  darkness. 
"  I  must  take  the  bull  by  the  horns,"  she  replied,  and  rode 


302  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

into  the  city  unveiled  at  midday.  The  population  were  thun- 
derstruck; but  at  last  their  amazement  gave  way  to  enthusi- 
asm, and  the  incredible  lady  was  hailed  everywhere  as 
Queen,  crowds  followed  her,  coffee  was  poured  out  before 
her,  and  the  whole  bazaar  rose  as  she  passed.  Yet  she  was 
not  satisfied  with  her  triumphs;  she  would  do  something 
still  more  glorious  and  astonishing;  she  would  plunge  into 
the  desert  and  visit  the  ruins  of  Palmyra,  which  only  half- 
a-dozen  of  the  boldest  travellers  had  ever  seen.  The  Pasha 
of  Damascus  offered  her  a  military  escort,  but  she  preferred 
to  throw  herself  upon  the  hospitality  of  the  Bedouin  Arabs, 
who,  overcome  by  her  horsemanship,  her  powers  of  sight, 
and  her  courage,  enrolled  her  a  member  of  their  tribe.  After 
a  week's  journey  in  their  company,  she  reached  Palmyra, 
where  the  inhabitants  met  her  with  wild  enthusiasm,  and 
under  the  Corinthian  columns  of  Zenobia's  temple  crowned 
her  head  with  flowers.  This  happened  in  March,  1813;  it 
was  the  apogee  of  Lady  Hester's  life.  Henceforward  her 
fortunes  gradually  but  steadily  declined. 

The  rumour  of  her  exploits  had  spread  through  Syria, 
and  from  the  year  18 13  onwards,  her  reputation  was  enor- 
mous. She  was  received  everjrwhere  as  a  royal,  almost  as 
a  supernatural,  personage:  she  progressed  from  town  to 
town  amid  official  prostrations  and  popular  rejoicings.  But 
she  herself  was  in  a  state  of  hesitation  and  discontent.  Her 
future  was  uncertain;  she  had  grown  scornful  of  the  West 
— must  she  return  to  it?  The  East  alone  was  sympathetic, 
the  East  alone  was  tolerable — ^but  could  she  cut  herself  off 
for  ever  from  the  past?  At  Laodicea  she  was  suddenly  struck 
down  by  the  plague,  and,  after  months  of  illness,  it  was 


LADY  HESTER  STANHOPE  303 

borne  in  upon  her  that  all  was  vanity.  She  rented  an  empty 
monastery  on  the  slopes  of  Mount  Lebanon,  not  far  from 
Sayda  (the  ancient  Sidon),  and  took  up  her  abode  there. 
Then  her  mind  took  a  new  surprising  turn;  she  dashed  to 
Ascalon,  and,  with  the  permission  of  the  Sultan,  began  ex- 
cavations in  a  ruined  temple  with  the  object  of  discovering 
a  hidden  treasure  of  three  million  pieces  of  gold.  Having 
unearthed  nothing  but  an  antique  statue,  which,  in  order 
to  prove  her  disinterestedness,  she  ordered  her  appalled 
doctor  to  break  into  little  bits,  she  returned  to  her  mon- 
astery. Finally,  in  181 6,  she  moved  to  another  house,  fur- 
ther up  Mount  Lebanon,  and  near  the  village  of  Djoun;  and 
at  Djoun  she  remained  until  her  death,  more  than  twenty 
years  later. 

Thus,  almost  accidentally  as  it  seems,  she  came  to  the 
end  of  her  wanderings,  and  the  last,  long,  strange,  mythical 
period  of  her  existence  began.  Certainly  the  situation  that 
she  had  chosen  was  sublime.  Her  house,  on  the  top  of  a 
high  bare  hill  among  great  mountains,  was  a  one-storied 
group  of  buildings,  with  many  ramifying  courts  and  out- 
houses, and  a  garden  of  several  acres  surrounded  by  a 
rampart  wall.  The  garden,  which  she  herself  had  planted 
and  tended  with  the  utmost  care,  commanded  a  glorious 
prospect.  On  every  side  but  one  the  vast  mountains  tow- 
ered, but  to  the  west  there  was  an  opening,  through  which, 
in  the  far  distance,  the  deep  blue  Mediterranean  was  re- 
vealed. From  this  romantic  hermitage,  her  singular  renown 
spread  over  the  world.  European  travellers  who  had  been 
admitted  to  her  presence  brought  back  stories  full  of  Eastern 
mystery;  they  told  of  a  peculiar  grandeur,  a  marvellous 


304  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

prestige,  an  imperial  power.  The  precise  nature  of  Lady 
Hester's  empire  was,  indeed,  dubious;  she  was  in  fact  merely 
the  tenant  of  her  Djoun  establishment,  for  which  she  paid 
a  rent  of  £20  a  year.  But  her  dominion  was  not  subject 
to  such  limitations.  She  ruled  imaginatively,  transcenden- 
tally;  the  solid  glory  of  Chatham  had  been  transmuted  into 
the  phantasy  of  an  Arabian  Night.  No  doubt  she  herself 
believed  that  she  was  something  more  than  a  chimerical 
Empress.  When  a  French  traveller  was  murdered  in  the 
desert,  she  issued  orders  for  the  punishment  of  the  offenders; 
punished  they  were,  and  Lady  Hester  actually  received  the 
solemn  thanks  of  the  French  Chamber.  It  seems  probable, 
however,  that  it  was  the  Sultan's  orders  rather  than  Lady 
Hester's  which  produced  the  desired  effect.  In  her  feud 
with  her  terrible  neighbour,  the  Emir  Beshyr,  she  main- 
tained an  undaunted  front.  She  kept  the  tyrant  at  bay; 
but  perhaps  the  Emir,  who,  so  far  as  physical  force  was 
concerned,  held  her  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand,  might  have 
proceeded  to  extremities  if  he  had  not  received  a  severe 
admonishment  from  Stratford  Canning  at  Constantinople. 
What  is  certain  is  that  the  ignorant  and  superstitious  popu- 
lations around  her  feared  and  loved  her,  and  that  she,  react- 
ing to  her  own  mysterious  prestige,  became  at  last  even  as 
they.  She  plunged  into  astrology  and  divination ;  she  awaited 
the  moment  when,  in  accordance  with  prophecy,  she  should 
enter  Jerusalem  side  by  side  with  the  Mahdi,  the  Messiah; 
she  kept  two  sacred  horses,  destined,  by  sure  signs,  to  carry 
her  and  him  to  their  last  triumph.  The  Orient  had  mastered 
her  utterly.  She  was  no  longer  an  Englishwoman,  she  de- 
clared; she  lothed  England;  she  would  never  go  there  again; 


LADY  HESTER  STANHOPE  305 

if  she  went  anywhere  it  would  be  to  Arabia,  to  "  her  own 
people." 

Her  expenses  were  immense — not  only  for  herself  but  for 
others,  for  she  poured  out  her  hospitality  with  a  noble  hand. 
She  ran  into  debt,  and  was  swindled  by  the  moneylenders; 
her  steward  cheated  her,  her  servants  pilfered  her;  her 
distress  was  at  last  acute.  She  fell  into  fits  of  terrible  de- 
pression, bursting  into  dreadful  tears  and  savage  cries.  Her 
habits  grew  more  and  more  eccentric.  She  lay  in  bed  all 
day,  and  sat  up  all  night,  talking  unceasingly  for  hour  upon 
hour  to  Dr.  Meryon,  who  alone  of  her  English  attendants 
remained  with  her,  Mrs.  Fry  having  withdrawn  to  more 
congenial  scenes  long  since.  The  doctor  was  a  poor-spirited 
and  muddle-headed  man,  but  he  was  a  good  listener;  and 
there  he  sat  while  that  extraordinary  talk  flowed  on — talk 
that  scaled  the  heavens  and  ransacked  the  earth,  talk  in 
which  memories  of  an  abolished  past — stories  of  Mr.  Pitt 
and  of  George  IH.,  vituperations  against  Mr.  Canning, 
mimicries  of  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire — mingled  phantas- 
magorically  with  doctrines  of  Fate  and  planetary  influence, 
and  speculations  on  the  Arabian  origin  of  the  Scottish  clans, 
and  lamentations  over  the  wickedness  of  servants;  till  the 
unaccountable  figure,  with  its  robes  and  its  long  pipe,  loomed 
through  the  tobacco-smoke  like  some  vision  of  a  Sibyl  in 
a  dream.  She  might  be  robbed  and  ruined,  her  house  might 
crumble  over  her  head;  but  she  talked  on.  She  grew  ill 
and  desperate;  yet  still  she  talked.  Did  she  feel  that  the 
time  was  coming  when  she  should  talk  no  more? 

Her  melancholy  deepened  into  a  settled  gloom  when  the 
news  came  of  her  brother  James's  death.    She  had  quar- 


3o6  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

relied  with  all  her  English  friends,  except  Lord  Hardwicke 
— with  her  eldest  brother,  with  her  sister,  whose  kind  letters 
she  left  unanswered;  she  was  at  daggers  drawn  with  the 
English  consul  at  Alexandria,  who  worried  her  about  her 
debts.    Ill  and  harassed,  she  hardly  moved  from  her  bed- 
room, while  her  servants  rifled  her  belongings  and  reduced 
the  house  to  a  condition  of  indescribable  disorder  and  filth. 
Three  dozen  hungry  cats  ranged  through  the  rooms,  filling 
the  courts  with  frightful  noises.    Dr.  Meryon,  in  the  midst 
of  it  all,  knew  not  whether  to  cry  or  laugh.    At  moments 
the  great  lady  regained  her  ancient  fire;  her  bells  pealed 
tumultuously  for  hours  together;  or  she  leapt  up,  and  ar- 
raigned the  whole  trembling  household  before  her,  with  her 
Arab  war-mace  in  her  hand.    Her  finances  grew  more  and 
more  involved — grew  at  length  irremediable.     It  was  in 
vain  that  the  faithful  Lord  Hardwicke  pressed  her  to  return 
to  England  to  settle  her  affairs.    Return  to  England,  indeed! 
To  England,  that  ungrateful,  miserable  country,  where,  so 
far  as  she  could  see,  they  had  forgotten  the  very  name  of 
Mr.  Pitt!    The  final  blow  fell  when  a  letter  came  from  the 
English  authorities  threatening  to  cut  off  her  pension  for  the 
payment  of  her  debts.    Upon  that,  after  dispatching  a  series 
of  furious  missives  to  Lord  Palmerston,  to  Queen  Victoria, 
to  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  she  renounced  the  world.    She 
commanded  Dr.  Meryon  to  return  to  Europe,  and  he — ^how 
could  he  have  done  it? — obeyed  her.   Her  health  was  broken, 
she  was  over  sixty,  and,  save  for  her  vile  servants,  absolutely 
alone.    She  lived  for  nearly  a  year  after  he  left  her — ^we 
know  no  more.    She  had  vowed  never  again  to  pass  through 
the  gate  of  her  house;  but  did  she  sometimes  totter  to  her 


LADY  HESTER  STANHOPE  307 

garden — that  beautiful  garden  which  she  had  created,  with 
its  roses  and  its  fountains,  its  alleys  and  its  bowers — ^and 
look  westward  at  the  sea?  The  end  came  in  June,  1839. 
Her  servants  immediately  possessed  themselves  of  every 
moveable  object  in  the  house.  But  Lady  Hester  cared  no 
longer:  she  was  lying  back  in  her  bed — inexplicable,  grand, 
preposterous,  with  her  nose  in  the  air. 

1919. 


MR.  CREEVEY 


MR.  CREEVEY 

Clio  is  one  of  the  most  glorious  of  the  Muses;  but,  as  every 
one  knows,  she  (like  her  sister  Melpomene)  suffers  from  a 
sad  defect:  she  is  apt  to  be  pompous.  With  her  buskins,  her 
robes,  and  her  airs  of  importance  she  is  at  times,  indeed, 
almost  intolerable.  But  fortunately  the  Fates  have  provided 
a  corrective.  They  have  decreed  that  in  her  stately  ad- 
vances she  should  be  accompanied  by  certain  apish,  impish 
creatures,  who  run  round  her  tittering,  pulling  long  noses, 
threatening  to  trip  the  good  lady  up,  and  even  sometimes 
whisking  to  one  side  the  corner  of  her  drapery,  and  revealing 
her  undergarments  in  a  most  indecorous  manner.  They 
are  the  diarists  and  letter-writers,  the  gossips  and  journalists 
of  the  past,  the  Pepyses  and  Horace  Walpoles  and  Saint- 
Simons,  whose  function  it  is  to  reveal  to  us  the  littleness  un- 
derlying great  events  and  to  remind  us  that  history  itself 
was  once  real  life.  Among  them  is  Mr.  Creevey.  The  Fates 
decided  that  Mr.  Creevey  should  accompany  Clio,  with  ap- 
propriate gestures,  during  that  part  of  her  progress  which 
is  measured  by  the  thirty  years  preceding  the  accession  of 
Victoria;  and  the  little  wretch  did  his  job  very  well. 

It  might  almost  be  said  that  Thomas  Creevey  was  "  born 
about  three  of  the  clock  in  the  afternoon,  with  a  white  head 
and  something  a  round  belly."  At  any  rate,  we  know  noth- 
ing of  his  youth,  save  that  he  was  educated  at  Cambridge, 
and  he  presents  himself  to  us  in  the  early  years  of  the 

311 


312  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

nineteenth  century  as  a  middle-aged  man,  with  a  character 
and  a  habit  of  mind  already  fixed  and  an  established  position 
in  the  world.  In  1803  we  find  him  what  he  was  to  be  for 
the  rest  of  his  life — a  member  of  Parliament,  a  familiar 
figure  in  high  society,  an  insatiable  gossip  with  a  rattling 
tongue.  That  he  should  have  reached  and  held  the  place 
he  did  is  a  proof  of  his  talents,  for  he  was  a  very  poor  man; 
for  the  greater  part  of  his  life  his  income  was  less  than 
£200  a  year.  But  those  were  the  days  of  patrons  and  jobs, 
pocket-boroughs  and  sinecures;  they  were  the  days,  too,  of 
vigorous,  bold  living,  torrential  talk,  and  splendid  hospi- 
tality; and  it  was  only  natural  that  Mr.  Creevey,  penniless 
and  immensely  entertaining,  should  have  been  put  into  Par- 
liament by  a  Duke,  and  welcomed  in  every  great  Whig 
House  in  the  country  with  open  arms.  It  was  also  only 
natural  that,  spending  his  whole  political  life  as  an  advanced 
Whig,  bent  upon  the  destruction  of  abuses,  he  should  have 
begun  that  life  as  a  member  for  a  pocket-borough  and  ended 
it  as  the  holder  of  a  sinecure.  For  a  time  his  poverty  was 
relieved  by  his  marriage  with  a  widow  who  had  means  of 
her  own;  but  Mrs.  Creevey  died,  her  money  went  to  her 
daughters  by  her  previous  husband,  and  Mr.  Creevey  re- 
verted to  a  possessionless  existence — without  a  house,  with- 
out servants,  without  property  of  any  sort — wandering  from 
country  mansion  to  country  mansion,  from  dinner-party  to 
dinner-party,  until  at  last  in  his  old  age,  on  the  triumph  of 
the  Whigs,  he  was  rewarded  with  a  pleasant  little  post  which 
brought  him  in  about  £600  a  year.  Apart  from  these  small 
ups  and  downs  of  fortune,  Mr.  Creevey's  life  was  static-^ 
static  spiritually,  that  is  to  say;  for  physically  he  was  always 


MR.  CREEVEY  313 

on  the  move.  His  adventures  were  those  of  an  observer,  not 
of  an  actor;  but  he  was  an  observer  so  very  near  the  centre 
of  things  that  he  was  by  no  means  dispassionate;  the  rush 
of  great  events  would  whirl  him  round  into  the  vortex,  like 
a  leaf  in  an  eddy  of  wind;  he  would  rave,  he  would  gesticu- 
late, with  the  fury  of  a  complete  partisan;  and  then,  when 
the  wind  dropped,  he  would  be  found,  like  the  leaf,  very 
much  where  he  was  before.  Luckily,  too,  he  was  not  merely 
an  agitated  observer,  but  an  observer  who  delighted  in  pass- 
ing on  his  agitations,  first  with  his  tongue,  and  then — for  so 
the  Fates  had  decided — with  his  pen.  He  wrote  easily, 
spicily,  and  persistently;  he  had  a  favourite  step-daughter, 
with  whom  he  corresponded  for  years;  and  so  it  happens 
that  we  have  preserved  to  us,  side  by  side  with  the  majestic 
march  of  Clio  (who,  of  course,  paid  not  the  slightest  atten- 
tion to  him),  Mr.  Creevey's  exhilarating  pas  de  chat. 

Certainly  he  was  not  over-given  to  the  praise  of  famous 
men.  There  are  no  great  names  in  his  vocabulary — only 
nicknames:  George  III.  is  "  Old  Nobs,"  the  Regent  "  Prin- 
ney,"  Wellington  "  the  Beau,"  Lord  John  Russell  "  Pie  and 
Thimble,"  Brougham,  with  whom  he  was  on  very  friendly 
terms,  is  sometimes  "  Bruffam,"  sometimes  "  Beelzebub," 
and  sometimes  "  Old  Wickedshifts  ";  and  Lord  Durham, 
who  once  remarked  that  one  could  "  jog  along  on  £40,000  a 
year,"  is  "  King  Jog."  The  latter  was  one  of  the  great  Whig 
potentates,  and  it  was  characteristic  of  Creevey  that  his 
scurrility  should  have  been  poured  out  with  a  special  gusto 
over  his  own  leaders.  The  Tories  were  villains  of  course — 
Canning  was  all  perfidy  and  "  infinite  meanness,"  Huskisson 
a  mass  of  "  intellectual  confusion  and  mental  dirt,"  Castle- 


314  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

reagh  .  .  .  But  all  that  was  obvious  and  hardly  worth 
mentioning;  what  was  really  too  exacerbating  to  be  borne 
was  the  folly  and  vileness  of  the  Whigs.  "  King  Jog,"  the 
"  Bogey,"  "  Mother  Cole,"  and  the  rest  of  them — they  were 
either  knaves  or  imbeciles.  Lord  Grey  was  an  exception; 
but  then  Lord  Grey,  besides  passing  the  Reform  Bill,  pre- 
sented Mr.  Creevey  with  the  Treasurership  of  the  Ordnance, 
and  in  fact  was  altogether  a  most  worthy  man. 

Another  exception  was  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  whom, 
somehow  or  other,  it  was  impossible  not  to  admire.  Creevey, 
throughout  his  life,  had  a  trick  of  being  "  in  at  the  death  " 
on  every  important  occasion;  in  the  House,  at  Brooks's,  at 
the  Pavilion,  he  invariably  popped  up  at  the  critical  mo- 
ment; and  so  one  is  not  surprised  to  find  him  at  Brussels 
during  Waterloo.  More  than  that,  he  was  the  first  English 
civilian  to  see  the  Duke  after  the  battle,  and  his  report  of 
the  conversation  is  admirable;  one  can  almost  hear  the  "  It 
has  been  a  damned  serious  business.  Bliicher  and  I  have 
lost  30,000  men.  It  has  been  a  damned  nice  thing — the 
nearest  run  thing  you  ever  saw  in  your  life,"  and  the  "  By 
God!  I  don't  think  it  would  have  done  if  I  had  not  been 
there."  On  this  occasion  the  Beau  spoke,  as  was  fitting, 
"  with  the  greatest  gravity  all  the  time,  and  without  the  least 
approach  to  anything  like  triumph  or  joy."  But  at  other 
times  he  was  jocular,  especially  when  "  Prinney  "  was  the 
subject.  "  By  God!  you  never  saw  such  a  figure  in  your  life 
as  he  is.  Then  he  speaks  and  swears  so  like  old  Falstaff, 
that  damn  me  if  I  was  not  ashamed  to  walk  into  the  room 
with  him." 

When,  a  few  years  later,  the  trial  of  Queen  Caroline  came 


MR.  CREEVEY  315 

on,  it  was  inevitable  that  Creevey  should  be  there.  He  had 
an  excellent  seat  in  the  front  row,  and  his  descriptions  of 
"  Mrs.  P.,"  as  he  preferred  to  call  her  Majesty,  are  char- 
acteristic: 

Two  folding  doors  within  a  few  feet  of  me  were  suddenly 
thrown  open,  and  in  entered  her  Majesty.  To  describe  to  you 
her  appearance  and  manner  is  far  beyond  my  powers.  I  had 
been  taught  to  believe  she  was  as  much  improved  in  looks  as 
in  dignity  of  manners;  it  is  therefore  with  much  pain  I  am 
obliged  to  observe  that  the  nearest  resemblance  I  can  recollect 
to  this  much  injured  Princess  is  a  toy  which  you  used  to  call 
Fanny  Royds  (a  Dutch  doll).  There  is  another  toy  of  a  rabbit 
or  a  cat,  whose  tail  you  squeeze  under  its  body,  and  then  out 
it  jumps  in  half  a  minute  off  the  ground  into  the  air.  The  first 
of  these  toys  you  must  suppose  to  represent  the  person  of  the 
Queen;  the  latter  the  manner  by  which  she  popped  all  at  once 
into  the  House,  made  a  duck  at  the  throne,  another  to  the  Peers, 
and  a  concluding  jump  into  the  chair  which  was  placed  for  her. 
Her  dress  was  black  figured  gauze,  with  a  good  deal  of  trim- 
ming, lace,  &c.,  her  sleeves  white,  and  perfectly  episcopal;  a 
handsome  white  veil,  so  thick  as  to  make  it  very  difficult  to  me, 
who  was  as  near  to  her  as  anyone,  to  see  her  face;  such  a  back 
for  variety  and  in  equality  of  ground  as  you  never  beheld; 
with  a  few  straggling  ringlets  on  her  neck,  which  I  flatter 
myself  from  their  appearance  were  not  her  Majesty's  own 
property. 

Mr.  Creevey,  it  is  obvious,  was  not  the  man  to  be  abashed 
by  the  presence  of  Royalty. 

But  such  public  episodes  were  necessarily  rare,  and  the 
main  stream  of  his  life  flowed  rapidly,  gaily,  and  unobtru- 
sively through  the  fat  pastures  of  high  society.  Everywhere 
and  always  he  enjoyed  himself  extremely,  but  his  spirits  and 
his  happiness  were  at  their  highest  during  his  long  summer 


3i6  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

sojourns  at  those  splendid  country  houses  whose  hospitality 
he  chronicles  with  indefatigable  verve.  "  This  house,"  he 
says  at  Raby,  "  is  itself  by  far  the  most  magnificent  and 
unique  in  several  ways  that  I  have  ever  seen.  ...  As  long 
as  I  have  heard  of  anything,  I  have  heard  of  being  driven 
into  the  hall  of  this  house  in  one's  carriage,  and  being  set 
down  by  the  fire.  You  can  have  no  idea  of  the  magnificent 
perfection  with  which  this  is  accomplished."  At  Knowsley 
"the  new  dining  room  is  opened;  it  is  53  feet  by  37,  and 
such  a  height  that  it  destroys  the  effect  of  all  the  other  apart- 
ments. .  .  .  There  are  two  fireplaces;  and  the  day  we  dined 
there,  there  were  36  wax  candles  over  the  table,  14  on  it, 
and  ten  great  lamps  on  tall  pedestals  about  the  room."  At 
Thorp  Perrow  "  all  the  living  rooms  are  on  the  ground  floor, 
one  a  very  handsome  one  about  50  feet  long,  with  a  great 
bow  furnished  with  rose-coloured  satin,  and  the  whole  furni- 
ture of  which  cost  £4,000."  At  Goodwood  the  rooms  were 
done  up  in  "  brightest  yellow  satin,"  and  at  Holkham  the 
walls  were  covered  with  Genoa  velvet,  and  there  was  gilding 
worth  a  fortune  on  "  the  roofs  of  all  the  rooms  and  the 
doors."  The  fare  was  as  sumptuous  as  the  furniture.  Life 
passed  amid  a  succession  of  juicy  chops,  gigantic  sirloins, 
plump  fowls,  pheasants  stuffed  with  pate  de  foie  gras,  gor- 
geous Madeiras,  ancient  Ports.  Wine  had  a  double  advan- 
tage: it  made  you  drunk;  it  also  made  you  sober:  it  was  its 
own  cure.  On  one  occasion,  when  Sheridan,  after  days  of 
riotous  living,  showed  signs  of  exhaustion,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Creevey  pressed  upon  him  "five  or  six  glasses  of  light  French 
wine  "  with  excellent  effect.  Then,  at  midnight,  when  the 
talk  began  to  flag  and  the  spirits  grew  a  little  weary,  what 


MR.  CREEVEY  317 

could  be  more  rejuvenating  than  to  ring  the  bell  for  a  broiled 
bone?  And  one  never  rang  in  vain — except,  to  be  sure,  at 
King  Jog's.  There,  while  the  host  was  guzzling,  the  guests 
starved.  This  was  too  much  for  Mr.  Creevey,  who,  finding 
he  could  get  nothing  for  breakfast,  while  King  Jog  was  "  eat- 
ing his  own  fish  as  comfortably  as  could  be,"  fairly  lost  his 
temper. 

My  blood  beginning  to  boil,  I  said:  "  Lamb  ton,  I  wish  you 
could  tell  me  what  quarter  I  am  to  apply  to  for  some  fish."  To 
which  he  replied  in  the  most  impertinent  manner :  "  The  servant, 
I  suppose."  I  turned  to  Mills  and  said  pretty  loud :  "  Now,  if  it 
was  not  for  the  fuss  and  jaw  of  the  thing,  I  would  leave  the 
room  and  the  house  this  instant " ;  and  dwelt  on  the  damned 
outrage.  Mills  said:  "  He  hears  every  word  you  say  ":  to  which 
I  said:  "  I  hope  he  does."    It  was  a  regular  scene. 

A  few  days  later,  however,  Mr.  Creevey  was  consoled  by 
finding  himself  in  a  very  different  establishment,  where 
"  everything  is  of  a  piece — excellent  and  plentiful  dinners, 
a  fat  service  of  plate,  a  fat  butler,  a  table  with  a  barrel  of 
oysters  and  a  hot  pheasant,  &c.,  wheeled  into  the  drawing- 
room  every  night  at  half-past  ten." 

It  is  difficult  to  remember  that  this  was  the  England  of 
the  Six  Acts,  of  Peterloo,  and  of  the  Industrial  Revolution. 
Mr.  Creevey,  indeed,  could  hardly  be  expected  to  remember 
it,  for  he  was  utterly  unconscious  of  the  existence — of  the 
possibility — of  any  mode  of  living  other  than  his  own.  For 
him,  dining-rooms  50  feet  long,  bottles  of  Madeira,  broiled 
bones,  and  the  brightest  yellow  satin  were  as  necessary  and 
obvious  a  part  of  the  constitution  of  the  universe  as  the  light 
of  the  sun  and  the  law  of  gravity.    Only  once  in  his  life  was 


3i8  BOOKS  AND  CHARACTERS 

he  seriously  ruffled;  only  once  did  a  public  question  present 
itself  to  him  as  something  alarming,  something  portentous, 
something  more  than  a  personal  affair.  The  occasion  is  sig- 
nificant.   On  March  i6,  1825,  he  writes: 

I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  our  Ferguson  is  insane. 
He  quite  foamed  at  the  mouth  with  rage  in  our  Railway  Com- 
mittee in  support  of  this  infernal  nuisance — the  loco-motive 
Monster,  carrying  eighty  tons  of  goods,  and  navigated  by  a  tail 
of  smoke  and  sulphur,  coming  thro'  every  man's  grounds  between 
Manchester  and  Liverpool. 

His  perturbation  grew.  He  attended  the  committee  assidu- 
ously, but  in  spite  of  his  efforts  it  seemed  that  the  railway 
Bill  would  pass.  The  loco-motive  was  more  than  a  joke. 
He  sat  every  day  from  12  to  4;  he  led  the  opposition  with 
long  speeches.  "This  railway,"  he  exclaims  on  May  31, 
"  is  the  devil's  own."  Next  day,  he  is  in  triumph:  he  had 
killed  the  Monster. 

Well — this  devil  of  a  railway  is  strangled  at  last.  .  .  .  To-day 
we  had  a  clear  majority  in  committee  in  our  favour,  and  the 
promoters  of  the  Bill  withdrew  it,  and  took  their  leave  of  us. 

With  a  sigh  of  relief  he  whisked  off  to  Ascot,  for  the  festivi- 
ties of  which  he  was  delighted  to  note  that  "  Prinney  "  had 
prepared  "  by  having  12  oz.  of  blood  taken  from  him  by 
cupping." 

Old  age  hardly  troubled  Mr.  Creevey.  He  grew  a  trifle 
deaf,  and  he  discovered  that  it  was  possible  to  wear  woollen 
stockings  under  his  silk  ones;  but  his  activity,  his  high  spir- 
its, his  popularity,  only  seemed  to  increase.  At  the  end  of  a 
party  ladies  would  crowd  round  him.    "  Oh,  Mr.  Creevey, 


MR.  CREEVEY  319 

how  agreeable  you  have  been!  "  "Oh,  thank  you,  Mr. 
Creevey!  how  useful  you  have  been!  "  "Dear  Mr. 
Creevey,  I  laughed  out  loud  last  night  in  bed  at  one  of  your 
stories."  One  would  like  to  add  (rather  late  in  the  day,  per- 
haps) one's  own  praises.  One  feels  almost  affectionate;  a 
certain  sincerity,  a  certain  immediacy  in  his  response  to 
stimuli,  are  endearing  qualities;  one  quite  understands  that 
it  was  natural,  on  the  pretext  of  changing  house,  to  send  him 
a  dozen  of  wine.  Above  all,  one  wants  him  to  go  on.  Why 
should  he  stop?  Why  should  he  not  continue  indefinitely 
telling  us  about  "  Old  Salisbury  "  and  "  Old  Madagascar  "? 
But  it  could  not  be. 

Le  temps  s'en  va,  le  temps  s'en  va,  Madame; 
Las !    Le  temps  non,  mais  nous,  nous,  en  allons. 

It  was  fitting  that,  after  fulfilling  his  seventy  years,  he 
should  catch  a  glimpse  of  "  little  Vic  "  as  Queen  of  England, 
laughing,  eating,  and  showing  her  gums  too  much  at  the 
Pavilion.  But  that  was  enough:  the  piece  was  over;  the 
curtain  had  gone  down;  and  on  the  new  stage  that  was  pre- 
paring for  very  different  characters,  and  with  a  very  differ- 
ent style  of  decoration,  there  would  be  no  place  for  Mr. 
Creevey. 

1919. 


INDEX 


Algarotti,  175,  176,  186 
Anne,  Queen,  131 
Arnold,  Matthew,  12 
Arouet.     See  "Voltaire" 

Bailey,  Mr.  John,  4-8,  10-15,   17, 

19,  22,  23,  26. 
Balzac,  270,  272,  276,  278,  279 
Barres,  M.,  270,  272,  288 
Beddoes,  Dr.  Thomas,  239-241 
Beddoes,  Thos.  Lovell,  237-265 
Beethoven,  292 
Berkeley,  131 
Bernhardt,  28 

Bernieres,  Madame  de,   119,   132 
Bernstorflf,  94 
Berry,  Miss,  83,  85 
Beshyr,  Emir,  304 
Bessborough,  Lady,  299 
Bevan,  Mr.  C.  D.,  241 
Beyle,  Henri,  269-293 
Blake,  44,  78,  219-233 
Bliicher,  314 
Boileau,  77 
Bolingbroke,    122,    125,    128,    129, 

138 
Bonaparte,  273 
Boswell,  73 

Boufflers,  Comtesse  de,  94 
Boufflers,  Marquise  de,  94 
Bourget,  M.,  270,  272 
Brandes,  Dr.,  53,  64 
Brink,  Mr.  Ten,  53 
Broome,  Major,  126 
Brougham,  313 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  33-47 
Buffon,  99,  188 
Burke,  95 
Butler,  Bishop,  35,  131 


Canning,  George,  299,  304,  313 

Canning,  Stratford,  300,  304 

Caraccioli,  94 

Carlyle,  115,  167,  176,  196 

Caroline,  Queen,  314 

Carteret,  131 

Castlereagh,  313-314 

Cellini,  84 

Chasot,  186 

Chateaubriand,  277 

Chatelet,    Madame    du,    140,    172- 

175 
Chatham,  Lady,  298 
Chatham,  Lord,  297 
Chesterfield,  Lord,  78 
Choiseul,  Due  de,  98 
Choiseul,  Duchesse  de,  87,  106 
Chuquet,  M.,  271,  274,  292 
Cicero,  84 
Cimarosa,  283 
Claude,  21 

Coleridge,  19,  37,  77,  78 
Colles,  Mr.  Ramsay,  238,  239 
Collins,  Anthony,  136,  138 
Collins,  Churton,  115,  121,  128 
Condillac,  282,  283 
Congreve,  124 
Conti,  Prince  de,  118 
Corneille,  99,  157 
Correggio,  283 
Cowley,  241 
Creevey,  Mr.,  311-319 

d'Alembert,  87,  93,  160,  199,  205 
Dante,  11 
d'Argens,  186,  187 
d'Argental,  90 
Darget,  186-187 
Daru,  273 


321 


322 


INDEX 


Davy,  Sir  Humphry,  240 

Deffand,  Madame  du,  83-11 1,  120 

Degen,  250 

d'Egmont,  Madame,  90 

Denham,  ^7 

Denis,  Madame,  182,  184 

d'Epinay,  Madame,  203,  205,  207, 

208,  210-214 
Descartes,  140 
Desnoiresterres,  115 
Devonshire,  Duchess  of,  305 
d'Houdetot,  Madame,  211 
Diderot,  87,  204-211,  213-215 
Diogenes,  143 
Donne,  yj 

Dowden,  Prof.,  53,  54,  56,  60,  64 
Dryden,  5,  26,  35,  ^y 
Durham,  Lord,  313 

EcKLiN,  Dr.,  250 
Edgeworth,  Miss,  239,  241 
Euler,  189,  190 

Falkener,  Everard,  122 

Fielding,  99,  242 

Flaubert,  271 

Fleury,  Cardinal,  139 

Fontenelle,  90,  273 

Foulet,  M.  Lucien,   115,  116,  119, 

121,  128,  130 
Fox,  Charles  James,  95,  97 
Frederick  the  Great,  167 
Fry,  Mrs.,  300,  301,  305 
Furnivall,  Dr.,  52,  54 

Gautier,  276 
Gay,  126 

George  III,  305,  313 
Gibbon,  36,  95,  99 
Gide,  M,  Andre,  269,  271 
Goethe,  291 
Gollancz,  Sir  I.,  53,  61 
Goncourts,  De,  12 
Gosse,   Mr.,   33-38,   43,   239,   251, 
252 


Gramont,  Madame  de,  98 
Granville,  Lord,  299 
Gray,  74,  76 
Grey,  Lord,  314 
Grimm,  204-213 

Hardwicke,  Lord,  306 

Hegetschweiler,  248 

Helvetius,  282 

Renault,  90,  94 

Herrick,  46 

Higginson,  Edward,  123 

Hill,    Dr.    George    Birkbeck,    74, 

79 
Hill,  Mr.,  299 
Hugo,  Victor,  tj,  276,  277 
Hume,  z^,  138,  141,  205,  209 
Huskisson,  313 

Ingres,  3 

Johnson,  Dr.,  26,  35-37,  40,  73- 

79,  127,  271 
Jordan,  171 
Jourdain,  Mr.,  189 

Keats,  259 

Kelsall,  Thomas  Forbes,  245,  246, 

249-251,  257 
Klopstock,  227 
Koenig,  189,  190 

La  Beaumelle,  189 
Lamb,  Charles,  zi,  230,  238 
Lambton,  317 

La  Mettrie,  186,  187,  189,  193 
Lanson,  M.,  115,  116,  123 
Latimer,  38 

Lecouvreur,  Adrienne,  117 
Lee,  Sir  Sidney,  53 
Leibnitz,  189 
Lemaitre,  M.,  4-6,  21,  22 
Lemaur,  86 

Lespinasse,  Mile,  de,  88,  93,  107, 
292 


INDEX 


323 


Leveson  Gower,   Lord   Granville, 

299 
Locke,  136,  139,  142 
Louis  Philippe,  272 
Louis  XIV,  88 
LuUi,  86 
Luxembourg,    Marechale    de,    94, 

103 

Macaulay,  167 

Macdonald,   Mrs.  Frederika,  204- 

211,  214 
Maine,  Duchesse  du,  88,  92 
Malherbe,  TJ 

Marlborough,  Duke  of,  130 
Marlborough,  Duchess  of,  125 
Marlowe,  242 
Massillon,  92 

Matignon,  Marquis  de,   105 
Maupertuis,     187-191,     194,     195, 

197 
Mehemet,  AH,  301 
Merimee,  Prosper,  275 
Meryon,  Dr.,  300,  305,  306 
Middleton,  138 
Milton,  II,  20,  259 
Mirepoix,  Bishop  of,  173 
Mirepoix,  Marechale  de,  94 
Moliere,  164 
Moncrif,  90 
Montagu,    Lady    Mary    Wortley, 

297 
Montespan,  Madame  de,  92 
Montesquieu,  98,  133,  282,  292 
Moore,  Sir  John,  299 
Morley,  Lord,  136,  206,  21 1 
Moses,  142 
Mozart,  28,  283 
Musset,  276 

Napoleon,  83,  283,  284,  288,  292 
Necker,  105 
Nelson,  271 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  125,  131,  138, 
140 


Pascal,  44,  139 

Pater,  39 

Peterborough,  Lord,  126,  127 

Pitt,  William,  the   younger,   297- 

299.  30s 
Plato,  227 
Pollnitz,  186 

Pompadour,  Madame  de,  175 
Pont-de-Veyle,  90,  93 
Pope,  5,  26,  42,  46,  TJ,  78,  125,  128, 

131,  259 
Prie,  Madame  de,  88,  116,  118 
Prior,  78 

Procter,  Bryan  Waller,  245,  249 
PuflFendorf,  94 

quinault,  86 

Racine,  3-29,  99,  157-159,  271,  292 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  56,  219,  224, 

227 
Regent,  the  Prince,  313 
Reni,  Guido,  283 
Reynolds,    Sir    Joshua,    36,    227, 

231 
Richardson,  99 
Richelieu,  90 
Rohan-Chabot,  Chevalier  de,  117, 

119,  121 
Rossetti,  224 

Rousseau,  105,  203-215,  283 
Rubens,  41 
Russell,  Lord  John,  313 

Sainte-Beuve,  12,  15,  22,  76,  206, 

271 
Saint-Lambert,  211 
Saint-Simon,  99 
Sampson,  Mr.  John,  219-223 
Sanadon,  Mile.,  104 
Shaftesbury,  36 
Shakespeare,   3,    4,    17,   42,    50-69, 

100,  138,  161,  271,  276 
Shelley,  28,  46 
Sheridan,  316 


324 


INDEX 


Sophocles,  i6o 
Spenser,  259 

Stanhope,  Lady  Hester,  297-307 
"  Stendhal."     See  Beyle,   Henri 
Stephen,  Sir  James,  259 
Sully,  Due  de,  117,  118,  129 
Swift,  33,  34,  125,  129,  131 
Swinburne,  226 

Taine,  270,  272 

Thevenart,  86 

Thomson,  78 

Tindal,  139 

Toland,  136,  137 

Tolstoi,  280 

Toynbee,  Mrs,  Paget,  84,  85,  93 

Turgot,  87,  209 

Velasquez,  41 
Vigny,  276 
Virgil,  17,  28 


Voltaire,  87,  90,  94,  98-roi,  103, 
1 15-144,  147-164,  167-199,  215, 
230 

Walpole,  Horace,  36,  78,  83,  84, 
86-88,  93,  95,  97,  99,  103,  107- 
iio,  127,   128,  131 

Webster,  44 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  313,  314 

White,  W.  A.,  221 

Winckelmann,  291 

Wolf,  169 

Wollaston,  138 

Woolston,  138 

Wordsworth,  19,  yj,  78 

Wiirtemberg,  Duke  of,  191 

Yonge,  Miss,  163 
Young,  Dr.,  125 

Zola,  270,  279,  280 


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